After the Flood
Reflections on the Sociality of Saltwater
Inundation on an Anthropogenic Atoll
Are Erik Brandvik
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements
for the degree of M.A. in Social Anthropology at the
University of Bergen.
MAY 2016
Table of Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .......................................................................................................... V
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... VII
PROLOGUE ................................................................................................................................ IX
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... XVII
SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS .................................................................................................... XVII
A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE CONDUCTED FIELDWORK ............................................................XIX
I: ANTHROPOLOGICAL THEORY AND OTHER WORKS OF SIGNIFICANCE .............................. 23
ADDRESSING THE WORLD ..................................................................................................... 24
A DISCURSIVE APPROACH TO CLIMATE CHANGE .................................................................. 29
ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND OTHER INFLUENCES ...................................................... 32
A BRICOLEUR’S APPROACH TO HARAWAY ........................................................................... 36
ADDITIONAL CLIMATE LITERATURE ..................................................................................... 39
II: SMALL STATE, BIG GRIEVANCE ........................................................................................ 41
DEMOGRAPHY AND OTHER FACTS ......................................................................................... 41
BETWEEN DESTINATIONS ...................................................................................................... 42
THE MAP AND THE MISSION .................................................................................................. 43
THE IN-BETWEEN BECOMES A DESTINATION ........................................................................ 44
GERMAN ANNEXATION AND EARLY COLONIALISM............................................................... 47
BOMBS .................................................................................................................................. 49
THE DAWN OF THE TWO CITIES ............................................................................................ 50
LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE ........................................................................ 52
AN OFFSPRING OF IDEOLOGY ............................................................................................ 53
COMPACT OF FREE ASSOCIATION .......................................................................................... 55
EMIGRATION AND LIFE OVERSEAS ........................................................................................ 56
PERCEIVED REMOTENESS ...................................................................................................... 57
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III: EVERYDAY LIFE, AND THE INCURSION OF POST-FLOOD CONSTRAINTS ........................ 59
IN BETWEEN: PRE- AND POST- FLOOD PLACEMENTS IN THE FIELD ....................................... 60
THE HOUSEHOLDS OF MAJURO ............................................................................................. 63
AMBER PALM FRONDS AND BARE BREADFRUIT TREES......................................................... 65
A TOPOGRAPHY OF LOSS....................................................................................................... 67
SHIFTS IN MATERIAL CONSUMPTION IN A POST-FLOOD SETTING.......................................... 72
IV: ANTHROPOGENIC SUBSISTENCE UNDER SIEGE ................................................................ 85
ENGINEERED ENVIRONMENTS, AND THE HARSH CONDITIONS OF ATOLLS ............................ 86
VEGETATION AND LIFE ......................................................................................................... 90
EROSION AND MEDICINE ........................................................................................................ 95
WATER AND LIFE ................................................................................................................ 100
AT THE END OF THE RAINY SEASON................................................................................ 102
LOJET AS HUNTING GROUND ........................................................................................... 103
“INVOLUTION” AND AGGREGATED EFFECTS ....................................................................... 105
THE SYMBOLIC ASPECT ...................................................................................................... 105
V: REFLECTIONS ON THE FUTURE PRESENT ........................................................................ 109
AD HOC SOLUTIONS WITHIN THE RESTRAINTS OF MATERIAL CONSUMPTION ..................... 109
RE-EVALUATING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: TWO APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE
IN
RMI .................................................................................................................................... 115
THE GREAT MOVE ABROAD ................................................................................................ 120
BIBLIOGRAPHY: ..................................................................................................................... 123
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List of Illustrations
LIST OF MAPS
MAP 1. NORTH FACING MAP OF RMI, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ............................ XIII
MAP 2. ARNO ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ....................................................XIV
MAP 3. KWAJALEIN ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ............................................XV
MAP 4. MAJURO ATOLL, WITH POINTS OF INTEREST OUTLINED ................................................XVI
LIST OF PHOTOS
PHOTO 1. FACSIMILES DETAILING THE EROSION OF DEMON TOWN CEMETERY. ........................ 26
PHOTO 2. ERODED FOUNDATIONS. ............................................................................................. 62
PHOTO 3. NAKED BREADFRUIT TREES. ...................................................................................... 70
PHOTO 4. FISHERMAN ABOUT TO DIVE INTO THE LAGOON. ........................................................ 78
PHOTO 5. DIMINISHED AMERICAN-STYLE HOUSE. ................................................................... 111
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE 1. THE IMPORTANCE, VULNERABILITY, AND UTILITY OF 29 MARSHALLESE PLANTS .... 92
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Acknowledgements
This MA is affiliated with the ECOPAS Project, coordinated by the University of Bergen with
the University of the South Pacific (USP) as the major Pacific partner; and this affiliation has
been central for the planning and execution of fieldwork. A number of people affiliated with
USP Campus Majuro have come through in ways that helped facilitate a successful stay in
the Republic of the Marshall Islands. In that regard I am especially grateful to Dr. Irene
Taafaki, Tamara Greenstone Alefaio, Kimber Rilometo, Brooke Takala, Jackdrik Bobo, and
many others. I will be forever grateful to the people of Rearlaplap, and particularly to the
family that took so good care of me during my extended stays in Langor, and so many others
whom I came to appreciate as good friends; allow me to extend a heartfelt Kommol tata! I
am equally indebted to my supervisor, Professor Edvard Hviding, who has helped me on a
journey that would have been difficult to finish without such an experienced mentor. My
sincere thanks to the Bergen Pacific Studies research group, whose various members have
given me an appreciation of what anthropology can be in an open forum, as well as giving
me feedback on my ideas. I am particularly grateful to Nora Haukali, Eilin Holtan Torgersen,
Dr. Tammy Tabe, Ane Straume, and those others who have contributed in a large or small
way. I am forever grateful for the academic discussions and other insights offered by Tord
Austdal during the last leg of the writing process. Lastly, but not least, this thesis would not
have been possible without my friends, who provided me with much needed intermission
from both my own thoughts and the creative dilemmas that come with any such writing
process.
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Prologue
On 3 March, 2014, certain areas of the coral atolls of Arno, Mili and Majuro within the
Republic of the Marshall Islands, in the central tropical Pacific, became flooded with
saltwater. This flood was caused by an extreme weather event, an extraordinarily high ‘king
tide’; as the waters rose to unusually high levels during the early morning tide peak, waves
were carried over the ocean-side reef wall and onto land. The following account has been
constructed from interviews, images, and film documenting the event as it unfolded in Arno,
around Rearlaplap’s lagoon. I was not present in Rearlaplap at the time, and arrived 26 days
after the event took place.
In the dark of night the L. family had to evacuate their mõn kuk (cookhouse), as it was
located right next to Rearlaplap’s lagoon; the very same lagoon through which the angry sea
now poured onto the narrow strip of land the family inhabited. The east lagoon first
experienced the surge as it came in atop the northwest-facing barrier reef. The waves
spread out from the north along the lagoon-side beach towards the east, south and finally
westwards. As the ocean surged onto land the waves dug away at the roots of the local
vegetation, and it was not long before a coconut tree fell down onto the family´s mõn kuk. In
the early daylight hours the mother of the family was watching from just across the mudroad; from a neighbouring family’s residence. A number of photographs from the event
showed her sitting on a tired white picnic-chair made from plastic, her eyes sinking into her
skull; dark rings beneath them, and a taut, blank and yet expressing face. Her gaze was
directed downwards and onto her lap. A red and yellow muumuu; a dress introduced by the
missionaries during their heyday, covered her shoulders and stretched down from her
collarbone and midway down her shins. Behind her one could see the greens of the tropical
atoll alongside her neighbour’s housing; somehow spared from the devastations of the
flood. The colours did nothing to compensate for the bleakness of her situation.
While all of this was going on the children of the family, five boys, banded together
with the neighbour’s girls and started chasing fish around the houses on the weto (land
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tract). Cell-phone video showcased laughter and play as the kids capitalized on an otherwise
unfortunate situation. As the kids eventually outmanoeuvred and cornered the fish one of
the boys lifted up a machete; the brown wooden handle covered in fishing line so as to hold
it together, and smacked the blunt end of the slightly rusted blade down hard atop the head
of the fish. Dazed and without any hope of escape the fish was abruptly torn out of its
element and into the air. The kids cheered triumphantly. In the nearby elementary school
the children’s textbooks became soaked as the mass of water intruded upon their
foundation for learning. Indeed, most of Rearlaplap was covered in seawater from the
lagoon to the ocean side. In the following days, and even months, the inhabitants of
Rearlaplap would have to deal with the strife and hardships following the saltwater
inundation of the extreme king tide the 3– 5 March. That being said a few exceptions could
be found towards Malel, where a few villages suffered less severe waves, and therefore less
severe inundation.
After the flooding, the main means of transportation between the local villages, the
dirt-road, was washed out and covered with debris and rubble, and at certain places the
road was cut off by fallen tree trunks. As if this wasn’t bad enough most of the local Kõrkõr
(outrigger canoes) had been flushed out to sea or pulled out into the lagoon, and had
otherwise become damaged. The night was dark and the villages had become separated.
The villagers had to wait for low tide to walk along the lagoon-side beach. The Rearlaplap
medical station had been completely destroyed by the floodwaters, and the medic was cut
off from the other villages due to the sorry state of the road. Luckily the only medicinal
problems to occur due to the flood were of a less serious nature. Those who still had
functioning Citizens Band radios (not destroyed by the flood) tried to contact the capital,
Majuro, but this was in the middle of the night and most CB radios in Majuro were turned
off. Contact proved difficult to achieve. Unbeknownst to the people in Rearlaplap Majuro
was hit as well, where the extreme storm surge dug away at house foundations, cracked
open tombs, and caused material damages forcing around one thousand1 people to
evacuate their homes. Water covered the streets, and some boats were swept away into the
lagoon. A state of emergency was declared on 5 March, and attempts were made at
distributing emergency aid to the affected parties. Following my departure from the
1
“About 940 family members” according to the 5 March Proclamation Declaring a State of Emergency by the
President, Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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Republic of the Marshall Islands, in July 2014, nine2 more such floods have plagued the small
island state.
____________________
This thesis examines how Marshall Islanders live with climate change related events such as
extreme weather, with specific emphasis on the 3 – 5 March flood of 2014. Flood events
such as these provide significant watershed moments around which the rhythm of everyday
life becomes drastically altered. The narrative structure of the text indicates the rhythmic
shift by placing events that occur prior to the flood in past tense, whereas events following
the flood are set in the present tense. In order to help us better understand the human
dimensions of climate change, and the rapid and violent change that occasionally
accompanies it, this thesis proposes an experimental reinterpretation of Donna J. Haraway’s
cyborg myth (Haraway, 1991: 149-181); in the hope that the blurring of boundaries that
accompanies a cyborg hybrid will do our understandings of the social dimensions of climate
change some good. While climate change certainly is environmental, its effects are equally
social (and intimately so); however often the social aspects disappear in a sea of overly
environmentally focused reports. Furthermore, whoever visits a Marshallese atoll will be
struck by its anthropogenic elements; most of the environment, flora, and fauna, owe its
current existence to prolonged human interaction. These atolls are in other words
profoundly anthropogenic, and this realization lies at the core of this thesis. Lastly, it is
difficult (if not impossible) to relate to the larger anthropological debate on climate change,
from the standpoint of RMI, without accounting for Peter Rudiak-Gould’s book Climate
Change and Tradition in a Small Island State: The Rising Tide (2013). This thesis can therefore
be seen as somewhat complimentary to Rudiak-Gould’s book; as the thesis examines the
post-disaster impacts of climate change on everyday life, whereas the book deals with a predisaster analysis of Marshallese narratives related to the idea of climate change.
2
The nine events occurred on October 2014, December 2014, January 2015, February 2015, July 2015,
September 2015, April 2015, October 2015, March 2016; were of varying scale; and did for the most part
remain outside mainstream media. At this time there is seemingly no official timeline on RMI inundationevents. I had to gather most of my information from social media; and more often than not from photo albums
on Facebook. Consequently this means that some of the reported events may be erroneous with regards to the
specificity of their dates.
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Map of RMI
Map 1. North facing Map of RMI3, with points of interest outlined. The geographical distance
between Majuro and Arno is only around 10 miles, but traveling to (and from) the eastern section of
Arno is time-consuming, and transportation is slow to organize; which means that the nongeographical distance between the two atolls goes beyond the 10 miles of ocean that separate them.
3
Edited version of original map found in the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (1989) “Republic of the
Marshall Islands Maps” University of Texas Austin, accessed April 28, 2016,
https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/marshall_islands.html.
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Map of Arno
Map 2. Arno Atoll4, with points of interest outlined. Rearlaplap makes up the easternmost lagoon of
the atoll.
4
Edited version of original map found in Marshall Islands (2012: 345) 2011 Census of Population and Housing,
Final Report. Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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Map of Kwajalein
Map 3. Kwajalein Atoll5, with points of interest outlined.
5
Edited version of original map found in Marshall Islands (2012: 411) 2011 Census of Population and Housing,
Final Report. Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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Map of Majuro
Map 4. Majuro Atoll6, with points of interest outlined. The urban city and its settlements can be
found towards east.
6
Edited version of original map found in Marshall Islands (2012: 443) 2011 Census of Population and Housing,
Final Report. Republic of the Marshall Islands.
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Introduction
The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) figures prominently in the global media coverage
on climate change; as one of several small island states that struggle against the rising
oceans. The Pacific Ocean has become a metaphorical frontline in a physical struggle against
the onset of climate change. Alongside voices from countries like Kiribati (represented by the
eloquent former President Tong), Tokelau, and Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands figure as one of
several Pacific atoll nations whose future lies in the balance. A fifth atoll nation, the
Maldives, should also be mentioned in this context; for while it is not located in the Pacific
Ocean, its struggles are the same as the other three, and the four do at times advocate from
a shared political base7. RMI is, like the other low lying atoll nations, already suffering the
consequences of rising seas; and it seems things will only get worse.
Summary of Chapters
Chapter 1: “Anthropological Theory, and Other Works of Significance” outlines the history of
RMI and Micronesia within the academic discipline of anthropology. The chapter argues for a
diachronic approach to the question of climate change, based in Micronesia’s particular
brush with Ecological Anthropology. Some of RMI’s recent efforts in addressing the world
are accounted for; giving active voice to what otherwise might have been seen as passive
victims to the onset of climate change. The vocality of RMI, and other affected atoll nations
such as Kiribati, Tokelau, Tuvalu, and the Maldives (the latter in the Indian Ocean), has put
the plight of Pacific Islanders’ who struggle with extreme and rapid change on the map. In
the anthropological debate on climate change however, the relevance of RMI has come from
another source; namely Rudiak-Gould’s discursively centred Climate Change and Tradition in
a Small Island State: the Rising Tide (2013). While the 2013 publication is accounted for,
Chapter I also proposes a different approach to the anthropological study of climate change;
7
See for instance the Coalition of Low Lying Atoll Nations on Climate Change (CANCC).
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by reinterpreting Donna J. Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto (1991) in a manner which allows us
to understand the intertwined realities of environment and the social within a Marshallese
(and possibly Pan-Pacific) understanding of climate change.
Chapter II: “Small State, Big Grievance” picks up on Chapter I by providing a
diachronic framework that better helps us appreciate the realities of the Marshalls with
regards to various rapid changes in climate, and also with regards to RMI’s recent and
current role vis-à-vis the larger world and geopolitics. Change imposed from afar, and as a
result of policies of the larger world, is not so new for the Marshalls; and I argue that the
perceived remoteness of RMI, by geopolitical actors, in most ways is naught but an illusion.
Chapter III: “Everyday Life, and the Incursion of Strife” approaches the Marshalls at
the ground level, exploring how rural life depends upon various subsistence practices, and
by briefly approaching some subsistence practices in the urban capital, Majuro; arguing that
urban Majuro is severely affected by the flood and the following saltwater inundation,
despite being situated within a larger monetary economy. I argue that where losing the first
breadfruit of the season to saltwater inundation strongly affects certain families within
Majuro, the effects of saltwater inundation, with the associated loss of breadfruit is
potentially more severe for the affected rural atolls. This leads to an exploration of the
topography of loss in Rearlaplap, and certain shifts in the material consumption of post-flood
households in Rearlaplap are accounted for. Additionally the chapter documents my position
in the field at the time of the 3 March flood.
Chapter IV: “Anthropogenic Subsistence under Siege”, continues where Chapter III
left off, and makes concrete the effects of flooding in rural Rearlaplap, Arno atoll; arguing
that people, vegetation, and water are intrinsically interconnected. The realities of atoll life
are somewhat similar to those of Geertzian “agricultural involution” (1963), and it follows
that the impacts of post-flood inundation affects the island ecosystem in a myriad of
interconnected ways. The loss of vegetation furthermore reaches beyond pure materiality,
as all things invariably do, and the loss of the symbolically potent breadfruit speaks to
associated threats on Marshallese identity.
Chapter V: “Reflections on the Future Present”, expands upon the analytical trinity
presented in Chapter IV, as well as certain insights from chapter III; approaching in some
detail how life in Rearlaplap exists somewhere between local subsistence and a global
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market of goods. Certain analytical implications will be drawn from the realization that the
aforementioned situatedness is crucial to Rearlaplap’s post-flood response. I furthermore
argue that the material realities of life on an atoll within the context of rising tides, are
suspiciously absent from more discursive analyses, and that if anything, discourse should be
appreciated within the context of this material reality. Whereas the official rhetoric of the
current RMI government insists on being swallowed up by the sea before moving abroad – in
stark contrast to other Pacific leaders who are calling out for help to relocate – the current
reality is one of outmigration to the US. I argue that this rhetoric, albeit heartfelt and
sincere, is only viable due to the passports held by the Marshallese population; allowing for
relocation to the USA. The thesis ends by once more appreciating the recent history of the
Marshalls, and by approaching current events with regards to the diachronic framework;
how the previously disastrous connection with the US now offers a possibility for a future, if
the rising tides continue to make life unbearable.
A Brief Outline of the Conducted Fieldwork
This thesis is first and foremost based on materials from fieldwork in the period 8 February
to 18 July, 2014. The fieldwork was “multi-sited” (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997: 32-35; 37) and its
primary focus was the post-flood situation of Rearlaplap, Arno Atoll. A sizeable amount of
time was spent on Majuro Atoll, generating supplementary materials, with an additional
week spent on the northern Likiep Atoll. While the original premise of the project concerned
what it would mean to live with tangible climate-change-related effects, and extreme
weather events, the specific post-flood focus did not come about until the 3 March, when
the atolls Majuro, Arno, and Mili became flooded. The preliminary portion of fieldwork was
spent in Majuro, in an attempt to grasp some of the realities of urban life, and establish
connections with other atolls on which I could spend time as a part of the fieldwork process.
This period lasted for 19 days followed by a five day intermission (27 February – 3 March)
spent in Arno village, Arno Atoll, after which I returned to Majuro only to find that the atoll
had been subjected to an unexpected flood event. I divided the remainder of my time
between the atolls of Arno and Majuro, and had by the conclusion of fieldwork (18 July)
spent an estimated total of just above ten weeks on Arno Atoll and eleven weeks on Majuro
Atoll; in addition to the one week spent on Likiep. While my stay in Likiep is not explicitly
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emphasized in this thesis, the opportunity to spend time on a rural atoll that remained
unaffected by the 3 March flood gave me an improved idea of what life outside of the
constraints of a post-flood setting could be like.
During the course of fieldwork I utilized participant observation, observation,
unstructured and semi-structured interviews, in formal and informal settings. I also
dedicated time to map drawing exercises with informants, and what I would call
“walkabouts”; which entailed the purposeful navigation of surroundings with informants.
This thesis is based on information generated from prolonged interaction with 30 – 40
interlocutors, from various walks of life and with various occupations and various places of
residency. The majority of the group ranges from 20 – 60 years in age, and consists of both
genders; with an equal dispersion in Majuro, and a dominantly male informant base in Arno
where the genders are somewhat more divided in their interaction with each other (than in
Majuro). People who only were encountered in strict interview settings are not accounted
for in the informant-base estimate.
Ten people (of the larger informant group) have functioned as “gatekeepers” and
“key informants”, with an additional two people functioning as field assistants due to their
commitment to the research and their role as translators. It should be noted that most
Marshallese people are quite fluent in English (or American English), and that this is
reflected in the collected material. The population of Arno is, however, dominantly
Marshallese speaking; which meant that I required assistance in order to understand certain
aspects of spoken conversation while in Arno; particularly in formal interview situations.
Certain parts of the information gathering process can therefore have been subject to
mistranslations, or the selective translations of people who had their own agendas and
understandings of the discussed subjects. I have therefore been careful in cross-referencing
information, at the same time being attentive to the larger discursive context of our
interactions. While the fact that I did not properly acquire Marshallese language
competence stands out as a weakness – with regards to the veracity of the information
gathering so crucial to fieldwork –, the information gathered through translation
corresponds well with information generated through interaction with English-speaking
informants and by way of observation.
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In terms of “reflexivity” my position as a white man in my mid-twenties, from
Norway, with a desire to learn about the social dimensions of climate change – or what it
meant to live with climate change – made me quite conspicuous in most settings. I initially
came to be known as a ripãlle (American) climate scientist, believed to have knowledge on
how to prevent climate change. Eventually I managed to convince the majority of people
around me that I did not know how to stop the rising ocean, and rather wanted to learn how
they themselves were affected by rising seas and the acceleration of unfavorable weather
conditions through processual change. I made it clear that I was a student, but only after
having confronted a well-established discourse (or pattern of interaction) between
(predominantly white) western climate scientists and Marshallese people, wherein
surroundings predominantly were seen as physical things to be dealt with according to the
natural sciences; while their social aspects were given less precedence. Eventually I even
came to be accepted, by some, as a Norwegian. By the end of fieldwork things had gone so
far that I (rather generously) was complimented as being rimajel (Marshallese).
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I: Anthropological Theory and other Works
of Significance
This thesis examines how people living on an atoll in the tropical Pacific, specifically in the
Marshall Islands, utilize land-based biodiversity (particularly plants) for medical, nutritional
and other purposes. I argue that the people and their surroundings are entwined, and that
this connection can be approached through a lens of ecological anthropology, focusing on
locally perceived well-being; without limiting the idea of location to something homeostatic.
Effects of environment are as such present as effects on the body; be it healthwise or in
terms of utilities. The chief reason for focusing on an atoll is found in the effects of climate
change on vulnerable atoll biodiversity. Atolls are located a few meters above sea level, and
support very little biodiversity; the land based biodiversity does as such have to be utilized
extremely well by the population. Larger tropical islands do in contrast support such a large
number of usable plants and trees that the local population does not depend upon of the
utilisation all species. Furthermore, in cases of rising seas, increased salinity, and increased
erosion leading to key species going extinct, larger islands offer the possibility of replacing
extinct species for species located further upland; atolls offer no such luxuries.
In other words; by their susceptibility to change, and the way these changes reach
the inhabitants, atolls offer good insights into how climate change not only affects parts of
the Oceanian landscape, but the people that live there as well. It is possible to see climate
change projected onto both society and the human body, not to mention how society again
acts upon, and perhaps even with, the landscape. If, as in so many other Pacific cosmologies
(Hviding, 2003), there is no such thing as a nature:culture dichotomy in the Marshall Islands,
there can be no divide between landscape and society.
Addressing the World
It should come as no surprise that the Marshall Islands, or Micronesia for that matter, is not
constituted by voiceless objects, but constitutes the homes of people whose public discourse
provides voice to the message of climate change. While Micronesia largely became relevant
to anthropology within the context of development as outlined later in this chapter, atoll
nations such as the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Tokelau, and the Maldives have made
themselves, and their plight as potential climate refugees, known to the world via global
media. One of the more distinct voices belongs to the current Ambassador-at-large for
Climate Change for RMI, at the time Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the
Marshall Islands, Tony deBrum (2014), and his voice speaks to the urgency of the current
situation in RMI:
I’ve been a politician long enough to know that politics is the art of the
possible, and that negotiation requires compromise. But on some things, like
the future of my country, compromise is not an option. As I said to the big
emitters meeting in Paris, the agreement we sign here next year must be
nothing less than an agreement to save my country, and an agreement to
save the world.
The Marshall Islands has figured quite prominently in global media concerns on climate
change. In June 2015 CNN ran a report titled “You’re Making this Island Disappear”: with
columnist John D. Sutter (2015) “reporting on a tiny number – 2 degrees – that may have a
huge effect on the future”. The article details the very real issues faced in Majuro, the
Marshallese capital, with emphasis on the most recent flooding, in addition to capturing
some of the spirit of everyday life on the coral atoll capital, as well as the ongoing emigration
to Arkansas. Sutter’s narrative covers more than just facts and figures, instead showcasing
the people who are affected by the rising seas.
Another contribution came by way of The Guardian, 11 March, 2015. The publication
is a recreation of “a set of historical images depicting the first impacts of climate change in
these countries where no one lives more than a few meters above the sea”; with updated
pictures taken by photographer Rémi Chauvin, from December 2014 (Chauvin & Hilaire,
2015). The visualization is powerful, making tangible some of the more visual impacts of
climate change; detailing the complete washout of Ajeltake beach (Majuro) in 2003, and the
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death of palm trees by constant saltwater inundation the very same year; the 2008 battering
of Majuro homes by waves; and the 2011 storm and king-tide effects on Uliga in Majuro. The
eroding away of cemeteries by the sea in 2008, has been documented in a similar fashion
(see Photo 1), with corresponding photographs from nearby Kiribati.
Al-Jazeera America meanwhile published a report the 18 May 2015, with the
headline “Disaster after disaster hits Marshall Islands as climate change kicks in”, as part one
of a three-part series on the March 2013, March 2014, and April 2015 floods (Lewis, 2015a).
The first two parts of the series (Lewis, 2015a; 2015b) confront the difficulties of evacuation
for a country located roughly two meters above sea-level, with regards to rising seas, king
tides, and the pounding waves.
Another contribution comes by way of Honolulu Civil Beat and its ongoing series
dedicated to covering “the Micronesians”, and their journey from their home islands to the
US (Blair, 2015). Among other factors the series of articles emphasizes the effects of climate
change on the future outlooks of Micronesian people; quoting President Christopher Loeak
of the Marshall Islands, on how “life in the Marshall Islands may soon become like living in a
war zone”; and Charles Paul, the Marshall Islands ambassador to Washington D.C., on his
considerations that climate change is the “single greatest threat to [Marshallese] existence”.
The author, Chad Blair, ends the article with the voice of Alson Kelen of Majuro based Waan
Aelõñ in Majel (WAM); “I don’t think we can do anything out here except for going out and
screaming to the world […] but so far, no one’s listening…”.
Bloomberg Business tackles the devastating reality of Bikini atoll nuclear refugees
having to relocate for the second time in around 70 years; this time as an effect of the rising
ocean (Morales, 2015). Author Alex Morales is particularly concerned with the ongoing
efforts in remaking US laws on the relocation fund, compensating Bikini Atoll Islanders for
the nuclear tests conducted on their home atoll during the 1940s. Hakai Magazine
meanwhile raises questions on the feasibility of landlocked Marshall Islanders’ retaining
their culture (or identity) in landlocked states such as Oklahoma; one of the more common
destinations for Marshallese emigrants settling in the US (Langlois, 2015). The author, Krista
Langlois, airs the possibility that the entirety of RMI’s populations will have been forced to
relocate to the US by 2100. Quoting Tony DeBrum, Minister for Foreign Affairs for the
Republic of the Marshall Islands, Langlois asks whether “climate change [will] amount to
25
Photo 1. Two facsimiles of Chauvin & Hilaire (2015) detailing the erosion of Demon Town Cemetery
in Majuro, from 2008 (top) to 2014 (bottom). Notice the disappearing tombstones.
26
cultural genocide”. Langlois furthermore underlines the radical difference encountered
between generations, as Marshallese growing up in Oklahoma may never have seen the
ocean so central for all life in the Marshalls.
One of the more evoking statements on climate change in RMI and the Pacific did
however come from Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, on 23 September 2014, when she addressed the
world as part of the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit (Jetnil-Kijiner, 2014). By
presenting her poem, “Dear Matafele Peinam”, Jetnil-Kijiner communicated that the
Marshalls, and the other climate-change affected countries of the Pacific, are lived places
cherished by people who consider them their homes. Her performance was broadcasted to
the world. Her powerful delivery – flanked by her husband with their child nestled in his
arms – stunned and shocked the room. It is only appropriate to end this summary of RMI’s
address to the world with Jetnil-Kijiner’s evocative “Dear Matafele Peinam” (Jetnil-Kijiner,
2014):
dear matafele peinam,
you are a seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles
you are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha
you are thighs that are thunder and shrieks that are lightning
so excited for bananas, hugs and
our morning walks past the lagoon
dear matafele peinam,
i want to tell you about that lagoon
that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise
men say that one day
that lagoon will devour you
they say it will gnaw at the shoreline
chew at the roots of your breadfruit trees
gulp down rows of your seawalls
and crunch your island’s shattered bones
27
they say you, your daughter
and your granddaughter, too
will wander rootless
with only a passport to call home
[…]
still
there are those
who see us
hands reaching out
fists raising up
banners unfurling
megaphones booming
and we are
canoes blocking coal ships
we are
the radiance of solar villages
we are
the rich clean soil of the farmer’s past
we are
petitions blooming from teenage fingertips
we are
families biking, recycling, reusing,
engineers dreaming, designing, building,
artists painting, dancing, writing
and we are spreading the word
and there are thousands out on the street
marching with signs
hand in hand
chanting for change NOW
and they’re marching for you, baby
they’re marching for us
because we deserve to do more than just
survive
we deserve
to thrive
28
dear matafele peinam,
you are eyes heavy
with drowsy weight
so just close those eyes, baby
and sleep in peace
because we won’t let you down
you’ll see
A Discursive Approach to Climate Change
The prominence and relevance of RMI within climate change anthropology springs from a
different source than RMI’s media dependent relevance, and the most recent
anthropological contribution to the issues of climate change in RMI comes by way of RudiakGould’s book Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State: The Rising Tide (2013). It
would be difficult to relate to the anthropological discourse on climate change in the
Marshalls without, at some level, accounting for the 2013 publication.
The book outlines a culturally specific model in which influences ranging from the
advent of colonialism in the Marshalls and up until today has produced a cultural decline
within which traditional values (or manit – tradition) increasingly have eroded away; by
increasingly preferring the incorporation and utilization of money and technology in
Marshallese daily life over traditional practices (related to manit) rooted in land. The
appropriation of power by money and new technologies do in many ways mimic certain
aspects of the myth of Letao, the Marshallese version of a trickster figure. By falling to the
allure of technology, money, and modernity, so too have Marshall Islanders’ brought the
negative aspects of modern technologies and ways of living – most prevalently climate
change – upon themselves; by virtue of having been seduced by what the author refers to as
Modernity the Trickster. The Marshall Islanders’ have accordingly adopted in-group blame,
based in the idea that they themselves were responsible for having been lured away from
manit and towards modernity. The past is consequently seen as preferable to the present,
29
rural islands are seen as preferable to urban islands, and traditional values (or manit) are
sought out to be restored. As Marshallese people see themselves as responsible, so too do
they value action over the apathy that some might associate with being victims of climate
change; in-group blame does not only suggest fault, but also the possibility of righting
wrongs (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 15-39).
Information on climate change is primarily made available and made sense of
through three channels: reception (scientists), observation (personal), and exegesis
(interpretations of the bible). The three channels figure into how people explain climate
change, and how credible they consider the threat of climate change to be; by a process the
author dubs triangulation. The bible is cryptic, the scientists are untrustworthy (just like
Letao), and observation provides information on the past and the present rather than the
future. As a result people may subscribe to one or more of these channels of explanation,
both as contradictory and complementary sources of information. In other words: making
sense of climate change relies on previously available models of explanation; climate change
is not transposed on Marshallese cosmology, so much as incorporated into it and
understood on Marshall Islanders’ terms (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 40-87).
Climate change becomes incorporated into a general narrative of decline; geared
towards the loss of manit. As anthropogenic climate change is increasingly understood as a
failure of human aspiration, so too does Letao come back into play; as the allure of
aspiration fooled Marshall Islanders’ to choose to abandon their culture. Climate and culture
does not constitute separate entities in the Marshallese conceptualization of land (through
the concept of Bwirej8), and climate change and cultural change consequently becomes
intertwined. Not only is climate change a cause of cultural decline, but a result of cultural
decline; in turn meaning that the one comes to equate the other. As decline narratives
become increasingly associated with climate change, so too does the narrative of climatechange-related decline increasingly replace nuclear fallout as the catch-all explanation for
various hardships; and where the disappearance of the arrowroot previously was blamed on
8
The concept (Bwirej) is not mentioned explicitly in Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State…, but
is nevertheless referred to as “cosmology” in the larger text. In “Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands:
The Women, The Plants, The Treatments” Bwirej is referred to “as the all-encompassing Marshallese concept of
land” in which “people and their knowledge and traditions are all part of the terrestrial, freshwater, and marine
ecosystems […] rather than constituting separate entities” (Taafaki, Fowler & Thaman, 2006: 42).
30
nuclear fallout, it is now increasingly blamed on climate change (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 88116).
In the absence of a separate nature concept Marshall Islanders’ cannot adopt a
strategy of blame that sees climate change as environmental; it is simply impossible to
blame climate change on nature. Instead using a Letao-style conception of modernity, ingroup blame becomes the only viable option. This creates a schism of sorts between
traditional ways of living and untraditional – or modern – ways of life, and what falls into the
two categories becomes renegotiated. Solar cells fall within the domain of tradition as they
are not seen as environmentally harmful, whereas cars, motorboats, and other similar
environmentally harmful technologies fall in under the banner of harmful modernity.
Whereas the former is aspired towards, the latter is (at least in rhetoric) abandoned. While
climate change cannot be solved by Marshall Islanders’, the author says, it can be used to
further ideas of manit, and ways of living that foster pride (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 117-143).
Narrative refusals to relocate have their basis in a cultural struggle for survival, in
which relocation is seen as a cultural genocide. As categories tradition and land are
interconnected to the point where the one equates the other; and relocation entails leaving
behind the shared sense of identity that comes with being Marshallese, and the associated
manit. While the threat of climate change cannot be solved through the power of insistence
– as in refusing to relocate if worst comes to worst –, it can be utilized to strengthen the very
ideas that underpin what it means to be Marshallese; and (as a narrative) refusing to
relocate may supply the willpower to tough it out for as long as possible. Eventually
relocation might be the only viable option; and in that regard the author points out that
refusing to relocate (narrative) in no way means that the majority of people would stay
behind to drown. Rather, relocation is considered to be a given not worthy of much concern;
the Marshallese people have access to the United States of America, and if all else fails they
expect to be taken in by some other benevolent country. After all, no one could let them
drown? In fact, the author goes so far as to suggest that the Marshallese population in all
likelihood would be taken care of by funds from international charity, based in the Marshall
Islands prominent figure in the world-wide press (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 146-175). Based on
the recent developments with regards to the refugee crisis in Europe, I fear that such
optimism might be largely unfounded.
31
Ecological Anthropology and Other Influences
By tracing the activities of researchers from the University of Hawai’i in the mid-1940s, and
the following USCC economic study of 1946, it quickly becomes apparent that the concerns
of anthropologists working in Micronesia have been influenced by the larger political and
academic environment of the US in a large way. Historically speaking the current
Micronesianist Anthropology emerged from a modus operandum intrinsically connected to
the governmental and geopolitical needs of the US Navy and (later) the US Department of
Interior. It is therefore necessary to approach the history of ecological anthropology in
Micronesia, particularly since this thesis aims to attend to similar concerns to those raised by
its preceding ecological anthropologists.
However prominent Pacific anthropology may have been prior to the Second World
War, with figureheads such as Brownislaw Malinowski, Raymond Firth, and Margaret Mead
conducting fieldwork in the Trobriands, Tikopia, and Samoa respectively, Micronesia
remained virtually untouched by American anthropology. Save Laura Thompson, who on
assignment from the US navy conducted fieldwork in 1930s Guam, no American
anthropologist had set foot in Micronesia by the early 1940s (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 12; 13).
The region disappeared from the anthropological gaze just prior to the Second World War;
due to the establishment of a “bamboo curtain” by its colonial masters, the Greater
Japanese Empire (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 17; Peattie, M. R., 1988: 79-80). This would change
the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December, 1941; and with the new strategic interest
in the region came a need for regional intelligence; and Yale University’s Institute of Human
Relations Cross-Cultural Research staff set to work on the following day (Kiste & Falgout,
1999: 11). This marked the starting point of American Anthropology’s involvement with
Micronesia, under the conspicuous agenda of US world politics. Anthropologists did not
arrive in the region until around 1944, just as the war was coming to an end, and when they
did arrive it was under the command of the US Naval government tasked with researching
material circumstances. According to Alkire (1999), this first period of anthropological work
in the region was heavily influenced by the culture-environment paradigm within American
Anthropology, and was initially focused on culture areas; it was not until the end of the
1950s that the discipline adopted cultural ecology (Alkire, 1999: 82). Micronesia was at the
time off limits for all non-US citizens, and US citizens accessed the region based on their
32
security clearance. These restrictions continued “through the 1950s, and […] the early
1960s”, according to Kiste and Falgout (1999: 19), and American anthropology did as a result
become the anthropology addressing Micronesia’s recent history.
During the mid-1940s the University of Hawai’i launched two reconnaissance
expeditions, both under the authorization of the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet and
Pacific Ocean Area. In August 1946, an additional governmental agency, the US Commercial
Company (USCC), followed suit by conducting a comprehensive economic study of
Micronesia; sponsored by the US Navy. This deployment included a handful of trained
anthropologists who served as “Specialist Field Researchers” for the USCC, chartered to map
and evaluate material resources and economic possibilities in the territory (Kiste & Falgout,
1999: 23). The USCC economic study did in turn provide a baseline for a long line of navysponsored projects: In 1946 the National Research Council (NRC) establishes the Pacific
Science Board (PSB); and the Coordinated Investigation of Micronesia (CIMA) is established
in 1947, with PSB as its administering agency. The CIMA project commences in July 1947,
and deploys as many as 41 CIMA researchers, thereof 29 anthropologists, who conduct
research throughout Micronesia. These are all funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR),
with additional funding by CIMA’s participating institutions, and the Viking Fund (Kiste &
Falgout, 1999: 23-26). Following requests by CIMA and the US Navy, ONR funds the 1949 –
1951 launch of the Scientific Investigation of Micronesia (SIM); a multidisciplinary endeavour
employing anthropologists, botanists, foresters, geographers, geologists, marine ecologists,
and vertebrae ecologists (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 28). SIM can be seen as a continuation of
the previously mentioned University of Hawai’i surveys; with the Coral Atoll Project, an
ecological survey of Arno atoll in the Marshalls, figuring prominently among SIM’s foci (Kiste
& Falgout, 1999: 28).
When American evolutionist anthropology entered Micronesia during the 1950s, it
was by way of Mason’s (1957; 1959) adaptation of Stewardian evolutionist anthropology
(1955), and not the work of White (1949; 1959). Micronesia was marked by rapid change,
and White’s focus on energy flows with emphasis on balance and homeostasis was as such
inappropriate for such non-homeostatic realities (Alkire, 1999: 84-5). District Anthropologists
were hired in 1950, following the advertisement of Anthropological Field Consultant
positions with Civil Administration Units in the Trust Territory of Pacific Islands (TTPI) by
33
Naval Operations (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 37). The TTPI District Anthropologists were tasked
with researching concerns relating to issues of resettlement, landownership, and the
redistribution of land; and uncovered the conceptual bind between people, land and kingroups, and noted how the dispersion of land tract varied between pie-sliced subdivision on
high islands and strip parcels on atolls (Alkire, 1999: 86). The ownership of land was
furthermore far more centralized on higher islands, than on atolls; where variations in
kinship, marriage, and adoption patterns meant that owned land was scattered across
several islets. Land tenure was furthermore organized to secure for the family access to all
categories of land of importance for subsistence, and these tenure systems had a level of
flexibility that would accommodate various population changes and fluctuations (Alkire,
1999: 86). Eventually anthropologists gained the insight that the ocean was less of an
isolating feature than a great source of subsistence. The various marine technologies utilized
by local people became increasingly focused upon, and anthropologists furthermore realized
that marine subsistence practices were of greater importance on atolls and low islands than
on high islands (Alkire, 1999: 87-8)
One 1950s program did however differentiate itself from the aforementioned
genealogy; the Tri Institutional Pacific Program (TRIPP). TRIPP was directed by Spoehr,
Murdock, and Mason (for the Bishop Museum, Yale University, and the University of Hawai’i
respectively). TRIPP furthermore operated on funds from the Carnegie Foundation (Kiste &
Falgout, 1999: 37), and was as such not subjected to naval government in the same way that
the previously mentioned projects, programs, councils, investigations, and their attached
anthropologists were (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 37). In 1959 Mason compared the
environments of seven Micronesian atolls; suggesting a correspondence between the
natural (or environmental) economic abundance of atoll societies, and their levels of
stratification. High production, and natural abundance, corresponded with the presence of
strong systems of chieftainship; whereas a lack of abundance corresponded with a virtual
absence of chieftainship (Alkire, 1999: 89). Another positive impact with regards to
anthropology in Micronesia came with National Science Foundation funding of the 1962 –
1967 Displaced Communities in the Pacific Project (DCPP). Though DCPP dealt with the
Pacific as a whole, the project contributed to the anthropology of Micronesia by approaching
the displaced peoples of TTPI; amongst them the Marshallese communities of Bikini, and
34
Enewetak (Kiste & Falgout, 1999: 38), whose displacement came as a result of nuclear
weapons tests.
Cultural ecology got another addition in 1964, this time by Sahlins insisting that
cultures were not closed systems, and that the interchange between cultures and their
environment had to become a focus. Environmental factors were regarded as external to
culture, and could thus be pinned down to yield a “causal primacy” between factors such as
“natural and social environments” (Ortner, 1984: 132-3). Marvin Harris and Roy A.
Rappaport transformed Sahlins’ cultural ecology into a strain of their own in 1966 and 1967.
Evolution was not the way to go, they claimed, and the discipline would be better served by
adopting systems theory; instead explaining how certain social actions would maintain (and
adapt) parts of – or the entirety of – cultures. The school of cultural ecology turned
increasingly towards how cultures maintained certain relationships with nature, and not
how nature constrained them (the cultures). In the words of Ortner: “Social and cultural
forms [functioned] to maintain an existing relationship with the environment” (Ortner, 1984:
132-3). Rappaport did however not influence the anthropology of Micronesia, as
Micronesianist scholars considered Micronesian societies to be less enclosed units, and as
such were less applicable for energetics analysis. According to Alkire (1999: 97), no
Micronesianist anthropologist has produced case studies similar to those of Rappaport
(1967, 1971) and Clarke (1971).
When the 1970s came about, “everything that was part of the existing order was
questioned and criticized” (Ortner, 1984: 138), and so too did cultural ecology come under
critique from Marxist anthropologists. Cultural ecology was too vulgar in its materialism,
according to Marxist anthropologists, and saw things as organizing people, rather than
seeing the social or symbolic values of those objects as the primary organizing principles
(Ortner, 1984: 139). Structural Marxism meanwhile unified the material (production) with
social processes (or ideology); contrary to previous anthropological contributions that now
were seen as too adherent to the material or the social process (Ortner, 1984: 140).
35
A Bricoleur’s Approach to Haraway
The ecological anthropology of Micronesia’s past has become severely dated, or even
outdated, and I therefore propose a different and experimental framework by which the
social realities of post-flood RMI, and the ecological realities of its people, can be
approached. Significant cultural events, such as a keemem (first birthday), involve the
utilisation of plants and trees in various ways, as necklaces signifying importance, in the
preparation of food, or as decorations. Pandanus or coconut leaf mats are typically weaved
in the days leading up to the keemem, and will later provide seating for women who prepare
food for the ceremony. The food is prepared within a traditionally thatched pandanus or
coconut leaf mõn kuk (cookhouse) which has been erected for the occasion, and the food is
served in coconut leaf baskets. These baskets are often, but not always, weaved in ways
which signify the importance of the guests they are presented to; and inside the baskets one
finds preserved breadfruit, fish, coconut rice balls, pork, pieces of chicken, and other
foodstuffs that typically come from the family’s weto (land tract). Pork has cultural value in
the sense that it is a precious meat reserved for special occasions, and is typically
accompanied by bwiro (preserved breadfruit), and any meal consisting of both pork and
bwiro is considered to be a good meal that provides a sense of cultural pride. The specific
usages of types of food, as well as the arrangement of plants, go beyond signifying social
relationships; the usages constitute part of the social relationships. There is, in other words,
little room for a western nature:culture dichotomy within the intimate relationships
Marshallese people sustain through close engagement with their surroundings. We
consequently require a different analytical model if we are to understand the plight of
Marshall Islanders’ who are struggling with climate change; and an experimental
reinterpretation of Haraway’s cyborg myth might provide the type of transgression of
analytical boundaries that such an understanding requires.
“A Manifesto for Cyborgs” was according to Haraway “written to find political
direction in the 1980s…” (1991: 3) and would later work its way into her book Simians,
Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, under the title “A Cyborg Manifesto:
Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. In her
manifesto Haraway formulated her notion (or myth) of a cyborg, understood as a reality
within which certain technologies and machines associated with the silicon chip become
36
extensions of the self. The interplay of ‘man’ and ‘technology’ characteristic of capitalism in
turn formed the arrangement of the social world as it was during the Reagan years
(Haraway, 1991: 149-181; Haraway & Goodeve, 2000: 39). According to Haraway the chip
allowed for increasingly small machines to permeate the social body, which as a result
proliferated minute ‘inscriptions’ that changed how people saw the world (Haraway, 1991:
153-154; 161; 164-165; 176-178). Previously sturdy conceptual boundaries – such as
animal:human, organism(animal:human):machine, and physical:non-physical – became
confused and transgressed, giving rise to “potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities”
(Haraway, 1991: 154). As the silicon chip became engrained in the fabric of society, so too
did the chip increasingly encompass and alter social relations; culminating in an ‘ontological
shift’ by which the very ideas of production and reproduction of the self, identity and social
worlds became transformed. The confusion of boundaries gave birth to the chimera that
Haraway asserts as an ontology, and “[…] a condensed image of both imagination and
material reality, the two joined centers structuring any possibility of historical
transformation” (1991: 149-150).
The historical era described entailed changed family structures, the oikos was
altered, and new discourses rooted in the new cyborg ontology helped rearrange social
relations in ways which produced new conceptions of self and other, also resulting in new
groups of oppositional identities (formed through reflexive strategies for constructing
identities). The effects of cyborg realities presented themselves also in ‘horrifyingly’
destructive potentials such as cruise missiles and new warfare, made possible due to the
technological advances of ever smaller machines; the minute size of which enabled the chip
to encompass (and possibly even transcend) the western world (Haraway, 1991: 153).
Atolls, agroforests, and reefs do, as such, present a different sort of material reality;
not by virtue of virtual invisibility, but nevertheless encompassing society in physical sense.
Atolls and biotic veracities provide for the production and reproduction of bodies and people
at the most microscopic level. By applying Haraway’s key insight into the interplay of
humans and technology as ‘machine’ to rely less on the silicon chip, and more on being the
result of human invention, the atoll with its biotic composition plants becomes a machine in
a different sense – and another kind of reality and understanding of life in RMI can be
discerned. In order to properly appreciate the hazards intruding upon rural Marshallese,
37
such as the denizens of Rearlaplap, Arno, we must transgress the boundaries dividing atoll
societies (or the body social) from their material body. This, I hold, needs to be done in a
similar fashion to the way in which Haraway’s cyborg collapsed the boundaries dividing
people and machinery during the Reagan years. I posit – in the fashion of a bricoleur – that
Marshallese atolls in many ways should be seen as machines; or at the very least as
technological inventions owing their current form to human labour and invention (such as
imported plants, patterns of planting certain things in certain spaces, and so forth). It follows
from any such interpretation that the social body – and the atolls themselves – are objects of
the same social relations, and that the one could not exist in its present form without the
other (and vice versa). The social body owes its existence to the agroforest and reefs,
whereas the agroforest owes its existence to the people. Haraway (1991: 178) explains: “It is
not clear who makes and who is made in the relation between human and machine. It is not
clear what is mind and what body in machines that resolve into coding practices”. The reef
only exists as a resource due to the technological knowhow required for its exploitation. The
atoll and the atoll society – or what narrowly could be termed nature and culture – melds to
make up a cyborg that exists as a part of the Pacific Ocean.
A cyborgian dynamic relationship exists between the atoll and atoll society; the
cyborgs, hybrids, mosaics, and chimeras may be different, but they are present all the same.
Seeing how gardens, fishing, and other lifestyle adaptations in Rearlaplap either are or
depend upon matters of technology, Haraway offers a useful analytical model for the
appreciation of day-to-day life in RMI. Technology becomes an extension of local collective
and personal bodies, and selves; as such the atoll represents an extension of society (the
people) in terms of the technological adaptations (agroforestry to name one) of the atoll.
This implies the existence of composite human beings not only made up by their bodies, but
also their gardens, their agroforestry, the reef, as well as their fishing practices, and so on.
Such an approach to what it means ‘being a body’ accounts for the experience of saltwater
inundation on the human body, and enables us to pose questions on both identity and life
adaptations with regards to living on an outer island versus living in the capital. The bodyfaced-with-climate-change shares another trait with Haraway’s cyborg in that it “[requires]
regeneration, not rebirth […]” (1991: 181).
38
The technological adaptation of the atoll, and the following implications of a cyborg
within which the atoll makes up the persons and the society living there (in as much as the
people made the atoll), also carries with it a historical dimension wherein the given space –
the atoll – has been a technological project across a longer continuum of time. In other
words: Time does not transcend space, but space transcends time. Consequently this allows
us to look at a flow of identity, in the form of traditional subsistence products – flowing from
Arno into Majuro – as well as envisioning the flow as a movement between the past and the
present; between ancestors and the currently living. This theoretical development can be
justified as – for many families – the ancestors both lived and died on the outer islands; a
status of relative opposition to the two atolls of Kwajalein and Majuro. The ancestors were
buried on their atoll, their remains were placed in the coral rock, and they became a part of
the islands and their lineage once more (like their ancestors before them). This is a deeply
spiritual connection, firmly rooting lineage in specific atolls. For many families the outer
islands have become a component of identity (or partial identity), power (certainly for
senators who have to campaign for their seat at their specific atoll), as well as a shared
Marshallese identity stretching backwards in time to the penultimate ancestors; just as the
urbanites travel ‘backwards’ in space towards the outer islands. The movement of traditional
foods from the outer islands (representing the past and the ancestors) into present day
Majuro can be seen as a construction of identity wherein the Marshallese of the capital have
constructed a ritual practice situated in an outer island mythos. As such the outer islands
function as identity machines for the capital-body; the very core of RMIs population. Identity
and technological adaptation becomes a question of the self at a societal level, as well as a
question concerning the past and the present.
Additional Climate Literature
Approaching the issues of climate change necessitates a somewhat multidisciplinary
approach; and at the very least a multidimensional one. Disciplines outside of anthropology
have approached related issues, and the various studies of Randolph R. Thaman (1987, 1990,
1992, 2002), Thaman, Elevitch & Wilkinson (2000), and Thaman, Keppel et al. (2005) offer
additional insights on the connection between people and environment in the Pacific. Not
only is there clear proof on the anthropogenic nature of encountered biodiversity, and the
39
cultural significance of the biodiversity within the Pacific, but the importance of human
interaction in terms of multi-purpose agroforestry is similarly stressed. By being part of their
surroundings (rather than distinct from them) the people of the Pacific play a crucial role in
the upkeep of the local biodiversity, and in the upkeep of their own basis for life. By planting
certain species of trees, acting as windbreaks and protection from the sea, working against
erosion, allowing other key species to grow and so forth, the anthropogenic element allows
for the upkeep of ecosystems that may otherwise fall apart. However, as people change
their habits and lifestyles in accordance with the market economy, their subsistence
patterns change, and so too does the connection between the people and the land (Thaman,
Elevitch & Wilkinson, 2000:7-8). Lifestyle diseases such as diabetes become increasingly
common, and the biodiversity suffers as traditional anthropogenic practices wither away;
the end result being increased erosion and salinity negatively affecting life on land. Rather
than allowing the land to break down, Thaman, Elevitch & Wilkinson argue, the upkeep of
multi-purpose agroforestry will allow for better nutrition and more protection coupled with
a lesser degree of reliability on the market economy (2000).
Understanding the social effects of climate change also requires a diachronic
approach; and in order to understand climate change as it unfolds in the Marshalls today
one needs to appreciate the Marshalls’ surprising and harrowing past. As such Chapter 2:
“Small State, Big Grievance”, attempts to clarify the process by which the Marshalls became
reliably mapped, the following influx of missionaries and traders, the slow growth of
calamity during early – and recent – colonialization that culminated in the Second World
War (with associated bombing runs), and the surprising suffering brought on by – and
endured during – the post-war years; in the form of nuclear bombs, displacement, and
eventually emigration and looming exodus.
40
II: Small State, Big Grievance
Life as it unfolds in The Republic of the Marshall Islands exists somewhere in-between the
local and the global; a chain of islands consisting of around 53,000 ordinary lives (Marshall
Islands, 2012: 13) and a future and past thoroughly affected by geopolitical interruptions;
colonialism; the Second World War; military governing; nuclear explosions; and more
recently rising seas and climate change. The last of the colonial powers, the United States of
America, has had a destructive – as much as a creative – presence in the Marshalls. In that
regard a few questions present themselves: In what way is RMI affected by the policies or
geopolitics of the larger world, and how have these factors affected the Marshalls in the
recent and distant past? How can a periphery, such as the Marshalls, be in the very centre of
large and global events such as the geopolitics of colonial empires, war between
superpowers, and the development or testing of one of the most terrifyingly destructive
weapons known to man? How can the people of such a small chain of islands implement any
will of their own versus the humongous and imperative strength of geopolitical actors such
as the Imperio español (Spanish Empire), Deutsches Reich (German Empire), Dai Nippon
Teikoku (Greater Japanese Empire), and the United States of America, if at all? And lastly,
how can the events of the past be said to be reflections of the current crisis of climate
change?
Demography and other Facts
The 53,158 strong population spans 26 atolls/islands, at an average of 759 persons per
square mile (PPSM), varying between 7,413 PPSM for the capital Majuro and <200 PPSM for
atolls Bikini, Rongelap, Ailuk, Likiep, Maloelap, Mili and Wotho (Marshall Islands, 2012: 16),
with a bewildering 68,671 PPSM9 for the highly urbanized Ebeye islet (of Kwajalein Atoll)
(Marshall Islands, 2012: 413); the infamous ghetto of the Pacific. RMI attained independence
on 21 October, 1968, (with UN/ESCAP membership 31 July 1991) and has a constitutionally
mixed parliament and presidential system (with a bicameral parliament10). Marshallese
(Malayo-Polynesian) and English are both considered official languages (Marshall Islands,
2014: 1). I should add that English proficiency varies sharply among its speakers. RMI’s
Exclusive Economic Zone consists of 2.1 million square kilometres of ocean, and dwarfs its
180 square kilometre land area (Marshall Islands, 2014: 1). It is not coincidental that RMI is a
member of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), a regional Pacific management
organization for its 8 member states’ Exclusive Economic Zones which “controls the world's
largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery” (PNA, 2016). According to the 2011 census
around 74% (circa 39,330 people) of the population lived in urban areas (Marshall Islands,
2012: XIV in Marshall Islands 2014: 1), whereas the nation’s labour force consisted of as little
as 12,647 people (Marshall Islands, 2014: 1); less than 24% of the total population, or just
above 32% of the urbanites; amounting to a GDP (PPP) per capita of $ 2,700 (Marshall
Islands, 2014: 1).
Between Destinations
The Spanish expedition ship Victoria, under command of Alonso de Salazar, made landfall in
the Marshalls in 1525 as the first recorded Europeans to do so. Sporadic encounters mark
the years of 1525 to 1566, with no less than ten recorded encounters of the Marshalls by
Spanish ships (Hezel, 1983: 13-30). The encounters were with a few exceptions uneventful,
and even though the Marshalls became touched by geopolitics as Spain attempted to
establish profitable trade routes through the Pacific to Indonesia, this was mostly in passing
and by ships traversing the yet unmapped Pacific Ocean. The Marshalls “were still
undiscovered as far as Europeans were concerned” (Hezel, 1983: 36), and were as such
9
The 68,671 PPSM calculation for Ebeye islet is an extrapolated figure; based on a total land area of 0.14
square miles and a reported local population of 9,614 people, Ebeye’s PPSM does not reflect the total
population of RMI.
10
The bicameral parliament is made up of an elected lower house (Nitijela) and a council of chiefs (the Council
of Iroij).Whereas the members of the Nitijela have legislative power and serve for four years, the Council of
Iroij is an unelected advisory body that consist of tribal chiefs who advise the Presidential Cabinet and review
legislation affecting customary issues.
42
neither the point of the gambit nor the ones to profit from it: they were simply there, in
between destinations. Hezel (1983:32-35) summarizes the early encounters by way of a
rhetorical question:
And what of those tiny Islands that so often happened to lie in the path of the
early Spanish captains? […] all found their way onto Spanish sea charts and
were promptly forgotten. They had no spices or gold to attract the interest of
the Spanish, and the souls that there may have been to convert to the true
faith were few indeed. […] These islands, with their treacherous shoals and
reefs, came to be regarded as nothing more than navigational hazards that
were best to be avoided.
Deemed to unimportant and dangerous, not to mention poorly mapped, the Marshalls were
soon forgotten; and would for the most part remain secluded from the effects of the colonial
empires of the day. The Marshalls were but a footnote in the annals of history, if even that.
The Map and the Mission
It would remain so until the period between 1780 and 1810. As chronometers became
increasingly reliable, so too increased the reliability of Pacific geography, and it was not long
before the Marshalls were rediscovered and mapped by Captains Thomas Gilbert and
William Marshall of the British Empire. On their way up the Marshalls in 1788 landfall was
made in Mili, and sightings were made of Arno, Majuro, Aur, Maloelap, Wotje, and Ailuk.
This eventually led to the establishment of the Outer Passage trade route to China, and as a
consequence to an increasing number of encounters between vessels and the islands later to
hold Captain Marshall’s name (Hezel, 1983: 63-65). New sightings of the Marshalls soon
followed; first by the Royal Admiral of the British Empire, who in 1792 discovered Namorik
and Namu while following Gilbert’s and Marshall’s original passage through the Marshalls;
Enewetak wasencountered by British vessels Walpole in 1794 and Hunter in 1798, Ebon by
the American Ann and Hope in 1799, British vessels Rolla and Elizabeth sight Jaluit (“and
other islands”) in 1803 and 1809 respectively; the vessel Ocean of the British Empire
discovered Ujae and Kwajalein in 1804; and British vessel Providence found Ujelang in 1811.
43
The Marshalls eventually became reliably mapped and is now considered important enough
to remain so (Hezel, 1983: 82-84).
Another important figure in the mapping of the Marshalls is the Russian explorer
Otto von Kotzebue, on the brig Rurick, who spent close to three winter months in 1817
exploring the Ratak Chain of the at the time little known Marshall Islands (Kotzebue, 1821a:
1-157; Kotzebue, 1821b: 140-180); he returned in 1824 and 1825, this time on the ship
Predpriatie (Kotzebue, 1830: 289-341). Kotzebue introduced goats, pigs, dogs, cats, and new
food crops such as yams to alleviate periodically occurring famines (Kotzebue, 1828a: 71-72;
74-78; 118; Kotzebue, 1828b: 174-176). The goats and pigs, Kotzebue later found out, were
kept and raised by the Marshallese as foodstuff, whereas the vegetable gardens he helped
build thrived rather well (Kotzebue, 1830: 308; 331-332). These new introductions
eventually spread by way of chiefdom, implying that the travelling Iroij (chiefs/kings) would
appropriate things of interest (such as the pigs) and take some of them along to their home
islands, again distributing the livestock by way of this appropriation (Kotzebue, 1830: 306308). Chiefs would indeed pick up harvests here and distribute them there by virtue of canoe
travel; dispersing goods among their people and not just appropriating it for themselves.
This was a two-way flow of goods in which an ideal chief would impoverish himself to
provide for his people (Hezel, 2001: 124-125).
However commonplace the navigation of the Outer Passage became, the Marshall
Islands still remained infrequently travelled at best, and these encounters were at times
marked by violence; in the period 1824-1852 as many as 11 attacks were listed; either with
loss of life or the loss of a ship at the hands of Marshallese people (Hezel, 1983: 197-200).
The Marshallese did at the time have a ferocious reputation for hostility towards visitors
(ABCFM, 1858: 89; 91; 184; ABCFM 1859: 145; 149-150). This was about to change with the
arrival of missionaries.
The In-Between Becomes a Destination
Where encounters between Marshallese and Europeans in 1525 to 1825 largely were
irregular encounters by passing ships, the encounters of 1855 to 1878 were of a less
incidental nature than the encounters of Alonso de Salazar and his compatriots. The
44
Marshalls, having already been mapped, soon became a point of interest for missionaries.
The Rev. Dr. George Pierson landed on Ailinglaplap atoll in 1855 by way of a whaleship, and
once there he encountered Kaibuke, the paramount chief of the southern Ralik Chain. It was
not long before Pierson gained safe passage for fellow missionaries to live on Ailinglaplap,
and passage for himself to Ebon; under guide of Kaibuke’s sister (ABCFM, 1858: 89-92).
Ebon was significant as the home of paramount chief Kaibuke, serving as a
converging spot for other Irooj (chiefs) (ABCFM, 1858: 91). For the missionaries this meant
that they could make native missionaries out of visiting parties, who again spread the word
wherever they returned to (ABCFM, 1859: 146). This is indeed what happened when Rev. Dr.
Pierson returned to Ebon, alongside a Edward Doane, aboard the hermaphrodite brig and
missionary vessel Morning Star in 1857 (ABCFM, 1858: 177; 179; 183-186).
In 1859, following missionary reports declaring Ebon to be safe11, a young industrious
trader by the name of Adolph Capelle arrives in Ebon, via German owned trading schooner
Pfeil (of firm Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst). This in turn marks the beginning of
Micronesia’s soon to be burgeoning copra industry (Hezel, 1983: 210-211). Prior to Capelle’s
arrival the coconut oil trade was at most a minor side business; carried out in small
quantities by whalers passing by the islands; whalers too afraid to live ashore for any stretch
of time. When Capelle sets up the first coconut oil factory in Ebon, in 1861, the coconut
becomes increasingly established as a source for commerce, and so too did the Marshalls
(Hezel, 1983: 206). “With the ships and trader, of course, came the usual scourges of
prostitution and disease”, writes Hezel, and the years 1859 and 1861 were marked by
outbreaks of influenza (1983: 206).
With time the climate proved strenuous for the European missionaries, and this led
to the recruitment of Christian Hawai’ian teachers for the mission. The Hawai’ians’ proved
better suited to the environment, and spread the mission from Ebon to the Ralik Chain atolls
of Namorik and Jaluit during the 1860s, and to the Ratak Chain atolls of Mili and Majuro in
1869. Arno and Maloelap (Ratak Chain) soon followed (Hezel, 1983: 209). By 1872 most of
the island churches were staffed by Marshallese people, serving as the backbone of their
own mission (Hezel, 1983: 210). Christian practices were by 1870 so ingrained in everyday
life, that the chiefly class came to respect (and on occasion fear) those who held church
11
See, for instance, ABCFM (1859: 147)
45
leadership, despite the fact that island church leaders mostly were Marshallese commoners
(ABCFM, 1870: 150). In other words: the power of the church came to rival that of the Irooj
(chief).
This is not to say that the establishment of Jehovah in the Marshalls was uneventful.
As the blessed word spread on Ebon, so too did the reading capabilities of Ebon’s subjects,
and the subjects of Ebon’s Irooj, surpass those of the chiefs (ABCFM, 1861: 55; 165-166;
ABCFM 1862: 18). In addition, the missionaries were slowly evaporating local taboos, and
creating new ones; tattooing, while still observed by Ebon people, was now carried out on
Jaluit due to feelings of uneasiness in tattooing oneself “on an island under the special
protection of Jehovah” (ABCFM Pi-A 7 Oct 1859 in Hezel, 1983: 205). This threatened the
powers of the chiefs, and relations with the mission soured during the 1860s, as the chiefs
mounted an increasing opposition towards the Marshallese Christian community (and not
the missionaries directly)12. One of Kaibuke’s nephews drowned his own wife and took a
“fallen church woman” for his second wife as an expression of discontent. The situation
came to an end around 1870, when the chiefly establishment realized the mission was far
too engrained in the commoners for them (the commoners) to abandon Jehovah for the
chiefs (Hezel, 1983: 208-209).
The commercial value of copra was at this point set by Asian markets, following new
techniques that in 1840 allowed for the production of soap and candles (Hezel, 1983: 211). It
was not until 1868, when Theodor Weber revolutionized the copra industry “by
demonstrating that well-dried copra could be shipped to European ports without spoilage”,
that the traders were freed from the restraints of the Asian market. “Large trading vessels
steered no longer for Canton, but for Hanover, London, and Marseilles” (Hezel, 1983: 212).
With an increasing number of trading vessels came the need for better anchorage, and Jaluit
became the new port of call by 1873, replacing Ebon as the Commercial hub of the
Marshalls. Politically speaking Jaluit already served as the seat for the current paramount
chief, Kabua; who assumed power after Kaibuke’s death (Hezel, 1983: 215).
The growth of the copra industry also led to the establishment of coconut
plantations, and the larger plantations were found on Fiji and Samoa. An increasing demand
for labour motivated so-called blackbirders to whisk islanders away from their homes under
12
See for instance ABCFM (1862: 18-19; 240-241)
46
false pretence (Hezel, 1983: 237). In the Marshalls, which was not renowned for having good
labourers, it was the women who suffered most:
Several labor ships touched at islands in the northern Marshalls at about this
time to obtain women who might be sold as mistresses for plantation
overseers. The women from the northern islands, reputed to be among the
most attractive in the Pacific, brought a handsome price – they “fetch at the
Fiji Islands twenty pounds a head, and are much more profitable to the slaver
than the men” (L Moore 1872). (Hezel, 1983: 237)
Slaver excursions to the Marshalls were not abandoned until 1882 (Hezel, 1983: 240), and
Marshallese women suffered displacement (and other horrors) as a by-product of the
growth and expansion of Fijian and Samoan copra plantations. Their suffering lasted for
some time.
German Annexation and Early Colonialism
The German annexation of the Marshalls was spearheaded by an 1876 agreement between
the German- and British- Empire; under which the German Empire was to maintain a sphere
of influence over the Northern Pacific, the Bismarck Archipelago, and part of New Guinea;
where the British Empire gained the rest of the South Pacific (Brown, 1976: 37). Another
step towards annexation came on the 29 November 1878, in Jaluit, where Kabua signed a
treaty with the commander of the German imperial naval cruiser Ariadne; a treaty in which
chiefly privileges were to be recognized, only as subordinate to those of Imperial Germany;
foreign parties in the Marshalls were to be considered subjects to the German law, and not
the laws of the Marshalls (Hezel, 1983: 298-299; Brown, 1976: 43; 164). The Ariadne then
leaves the Marshalls “to be governed, in effect, by [German] trading firms” (Hezel, 1983:
302). Franz Hernsheim, of German registered company Hernsheim & Co., is left as the
German consul at Jaluit. The U.S., who wishes to safeguard the interests of their missionaries
in the Marshalls, soon establishes a consular office of their own (also in Jaluit) and elects
Adolph Capelle – formerly of Hanover, Germany, and current head of American registered
Capelle & Co. (co-owned by Portuguese Anton DeBrum) – the American consul (Hezel, 1983:
302). Around 1884 Capelle & Co. becomes a subordinate of German registered company
47
Robertson & Hernseim, leaving Robertson & Hernsheim alongside Deutsche Handels- und
Plantagen-Gesellschaft (DHPG) the “virtual masters of the copra trade in the Marshalls…”
(Hezel, 1983: 305), and leaving the American consul the employee of a German firm.
The Marshalls were annexed as an Imperial German Protectorate in October 1885,
after the continued insistence of German trading firms towards Reichskanzler Otto von
Bismarck to do so (Hezel, 1983: 305; Brown, 1976: 60; 164-167). The Reichskanzler
persuaded recently established German firm the Jaluit Company, a joint-stock company
controlled by Hernsheim and DHPG, to accept the responsibility of ruling the Marshall
Islands in 1887 (Brown, 1976: 165-167). The geopolitical interest in the Marshalls was purely
of an economic nature (versus a military one), and the trading firms were thus uniquely
equipped to maintain the colonial interests in the area. Whereas the de jure annexation (of
the Marshalls) was by an Empire, the de facto annexation was by the trading firms. Hezel,
however, summarizes the situation as follows: “[Though] German […] administrators […]
enjoyed political authority over the islands, […] the Protestant mission had the greatest
impact on the daily lives of the people…” (1983: 314), and it was indeed the mission that
unwittingly gained foothold for the commercial interests of the wider world, in turn making
the Marshalls a destination of its own, and leading the Marshallese down a path of
colonialism.
The official status of the Marshalls changed once more, in 1914 (at the beginning of
the First World War), when the islands are seized by the Greater Japanese Empire. Japans
acquisition of the Marshalls (and indeed Micronesia) is later legitimized by the Treaty of
Versailles (Oliver, 1958: 109). The following period of Japanese colonialism was marked by
the development of a strong economy in the region, albeit one built on Japanese immigrants
rather than the local population who the colonial empire found difficult to properly motivate
(Hezel, 2001: 3). The greater influx of Japanese workers meant that the Japanese population
in Micronesia exceeded the local population, even prior to the arrival of Japanese soldiers at
the cusp of the Second World War (Hezel, 2001: 3).
48
Bombs
The United States of America eventually gained custodianship over Micronesia as a war-prize
Trusteeship under the newly formed United Nations (UN) (Hezel, 2001: 3). The purchase was
made with the blood spilled by young American men13 during the Pacific Ocean Theatre of
1941 to 1945; a military effort instigated by Japan and the Imperial Japanese Navy’s attack
on Pearl Harbor 7 December, 1941. As for the Marshallese, “Kwajalein [atoll] endured the
most concentrated bombing of the Pacific war, […] with 36,000 shells dropped on it”
(Hanlon, 1998: 23), with Jaluit, Mili, and Wotje suffering the greatest war-caused destruction
in the Marshalls beside Kwajalein (Hanlon, 1998: 26). For Micronesia, Fletcher Pratt writes
that “never in the history of human conflict had so much been thrown by so many at so few”
(Pratt, 1948: 144 in Richard, 1957a: 120). Douglas Oliver meanwhile states that: “…for many
islanders, who had nothing to do with [the] inception [of the Second World War] and little
with its outcome, the war catastrophically disturbed their lives and radically changed their
concepts” (1958: 261). U.S. President Harry S. Truman awarded the United States Navy
(USN) responsibility for the interim management of Micronesia in 1945 (Richard, 1957b: 7073; 87), and announced plans for a Naval Trusteeship of Micronesia to the newly established
United Nations (UN) in 1946 (Hanlon, 1998: 46), while simultaneously ushering in the dawn
of nuclear weapons tests in the Marshalls; beginning with the Able test detonation – the first
nuclear tests since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – on Bikini atoll the very same
year (Hanlon, 1998: 48). Change literally came at the speed of light, riding on the back of
ionizing radiation, accompanied by blast winds approaching the speed of sound.
In contrast to the largely bureaucratic management of the other Micronesian islands,
U.S. interests in the Marshalls were overwhelmingly strategic (Hanlon, 1998: 171). Owing to
the geopolitical needs of the post-war world, the U.S., under lead of Secretary of War Henry
Stinson, seeks “absolute power to rule and fortify the islands” (Hanlon, 1998: 43-44). As a
military strategy this was an extension of America’s westward defence legitimized in the role
of aircraft, or air power, for warfare. Such an annexation was assuredly not imperialistic or
colonial, according to former President Herbert Hoover, as the U.S. had no commercial
interest in Micronesia (speech depicted in Richard, 1957c: 16-17). The UN approves U.S.
13
The suffering of indigenous islanders, while it should not be discounted, had little to do with how the larger
world perceived America’s custodianship over Micronesia to be legitimate.
49
plans for a Naval Trusteeship of Micronesia in 1947, and the Trust Territory of the Pacific
Islands (TTPI) is summarily established (Richard, 1957b: 87; Richard, 1957c: 3), granting the
U.S. “full powers of administration, legislation, and jurisdiction over the territory, subject to
the provisions of this agreement, and [gave it the authority to] apply to the trust territory,
subject to any modifications which the administering authority may consider desirable, such
of the laws of the United States as it may deem appropriate to local conditions and
requirements” (JAG in Richard, 1957c: 179). TTPI is transferred to the United States
Department of Interior in 1951; when the Cold War climate entailed that USN no longer
could afford to be tied up running a trusteeship (Hanlon, 1998: 83; Richard, 1957c: 10911107). In 1958, after routinely bombing the Marshalls with 68 nuclear weapons over 12
years, U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshalls comes to an end (Hanlon, 1998: 186). Few
people, if any, have had to suffer through so many years of nuclear fallout and related
displacement as the people of atolls Bikini and Enewetak, and the people of atolls Rongelap,
Rongerik, and Utirik.
The Dawn of the Two Cities
Both Ebeye and Majuro were built on the back of a relocation process that began in 1945,
when camps of Marshallese workers were established on Kwajalein and Roi (for Kwajalein
atoll), and on Majuro (for Majuro atoll). The camps were intended to supply a much needed
workforce to be tasked with rebuilding the two atolls, following damages from the Second
World War (Hanlon, 1998: 40-41; Richard, 1957b: 484-486). Both atolls were significant due
to the sheltered anchorages offered by their lagoons. The growth of Ebeye and Majuro does
as such reflect each other to an extent; the crucial differentiator being that Ebeye grew
under the direct influence of USN and the U.S. Army, in turn netting a more critical (or
abysmal) projection, whereas Majuro was less directly influenced by military geopolitics, and
consequently ended up in a slightly less critical state than Ebeye.
The physical appearance of the islands changed with time, and whereas one motorvehicle travelled Majuro’s thirty-mile road in 1960, 200 vehicles could be found in 1965
(Hezel, 1995: 321), while as many as 510 Marshallese owned vehicles in 1972 (United States
Department of State, 1972: 296). “The increase in American funding meant more jobs and
50
higher wages”, in turn attracting a growing mass of people (Hanlon, 1998: 173). Where one
third (circa 4,700 people) of the Marshalls population were living in the two cities in 1958,
two thirds (circa 15,800 people) of the total population were urbanites by 1973; an extreme
number of people relative to the small number of available jobs (Hezel, 2001: 140). Where
large numbers of children previously were regarded as securing the future of the family, they
became extra mouths to feed; in turn leading to a slight decline in the average size of the
family (Hezel, 2001: 140-142). Similarly changed were the roles of men, as highlighted by
Hezel in 2001 (: 52):
Men are [now] expected to do the heavy work […], but no canoes are being
made since motorboats or fiberglass whalers are ordered from abroad and
house construction is often contracted out to building companies. Rope is
bought, no longer made. Males continue to do fishing, in some cases as a
pastime rather than a means of feeding the family, but much of the fish
consumed today is purchased in tins. Work in the taro patches has ceased, at
least in Majuro and Ebeye, and little other food is grown in these places. The
male domestic work load, therefore, has been greatly reduced from what it
was some years before.
The role of women, apparently, did not change as much. Hezel (2001: 52) goes on to
juxtapose his own description with that of Alexander Spoehr in 1940s Majuro. I here quote
Spoehr (1949: 144) in original:
The men's sphere of activity includes the heavy labor such as house-building
and canoe-making. It includes all woodworking. Men spin the coconut husk
line used in canoe-lashings and net bags […], the latter being a product of
men's manufacture. Men are the sailors. Men do the fishing and make fish
traps and pounds. They collect the vegetable food and work in the taro
patches. Aside from these manual tasks, men have also assumed the primary
responsibility in the working of cultural institutions borrowed from without.
The local village officials are all men; the pastor, medical aid, school principal,
and storekeepers are also men.
Whereas fishing still takes place in Majuro, the rationale behind the activity has changed;
people occasionally fish for subsistence purposes, but the activity itself has become
51
predominantly symbolic. Men still retain their role in hard labour, however – as the
juxtaposition of Hezel and Spoehr makes abundantly clear – the hard labour itself was
replaced by market goods and professional services. Family centred and subsistence related
activities, and the associated organizations of kinship, gave way to increasingly impersonal
transactions.
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
The agent of change took a different form on Ebeye, initially in the guise of the US Navy.
With the implementation of Kwajalein as a military complex; “…[its] enormous lagoon and
deep anchorages [attracting] the attention of the United States military, first as a naval base,
then as a support facility for nuclear testing on Bikini and Enewetak [1946–1958], and later
as a missile testing range [Pacific Missile Test Facility Kwajalein in 1959, Kwajalein Test Site in
1964, & Kwajalein Missile Range (KMR) in 1968]” (Hanlon, 1998: 189); the Marshallese
population on Kwajalein atoll became increasingly confined to Ebeye islet, where around
1,200 Marshallese labourers and their families “were crammed into an area of less than
twenty-seven acres”, averaging about 46 people per acre (Hanlon, 1998: 191).
The labour requirements of the base grew, and alongside it the population of Ebeye;
a small ghetto by 1960 (Hanlon, 1998: 187); earning a negative report from the visiting UN
Mission in 1961 (Hanlon, 1998: 108); being described as “the most congested, unhealthful
and socially demoralized community in Micronesia” in 1966, with an estimated 4,500 people
living on one tenth of a square mile (Mahoney, 1966 in Hanlon, 1998: 193); with a
population exceeding 8000 people in 1978 (Hanlon, 1998: 196); and under severely
deteriorated conditions in 1979 (Hanlon, 1998: 187), all despite U.S. attempts at diminishing
the population. The poor living conditions, following relocation from other islands (within
Kwajalein atoll), were met with opposition by Marshallese at varying intervals: In 1964 the
landowners who felt resentment over the poor conditions under which USN initially sought
legitimized use of Kwajalein atoll – via a $ 300,000 lump sum and a legal contract for
indefinite use (Hanlon, 1998: 192; Hezel, 1998: 325), and under threat of confiscation of land
under eminent domain (Hanlon, 1998: 195) –, received a $ 750,000 one-time offer for a 99
year lease agreement on Kwajalein atoll (Hanlon, 1998: 192; Hezel, 1998: 325). Resistance
resurfaced in the form of sail-ins and temporary occupations in 1969, 1977, and 1978; with
the 1978 occupation culminating in the U.S. agreeing to a one-year interim use agreement,
52
providing a total $ 9,000,000.00, “of which $ 5 million went directly to the affected
landowners…” (Hanlon, 1998: 210).
The resistance carried over into 1980, when Kwajalein landowners formed the
Kwajalein Atoll Corporation (KAC), with the express purpose of seeking proper compensation
for and renegotiating the 1944–1979 lease agreements for Kwajalein atoll (Hanlon, 1998:
210). The Kwajalein landowners initiates Operation Homecoming in 1982 as a response to
the newly signed Compact of Free Association, in which the U.S. was granted a “fifty-year
lease on the use of the Kwajalein Missile range” (Hanlon, 1998: 211). Operation
Homecoming lasts for four months, with around a thousand landowners moving back to –
and settling in – their homes on Kwajalein, Roi-Namur, and the Mid Corridor group islands.
Talks between KAC and the U.S. government ensued and a new thirty year lease was
implemented; an additional $10,000,000 capital investment fund was established for Ebeye;
and the landowners were granted access to certain previously restricted islands, and Midcorridor islands, for portions of the year (Hanlon, 1998: 211-212). It would seem that U.S.
actions were less motivated by development than by national security and public image
(Hanlon, 1998: 204).
An Offspring of Ideology
The growth of Ebeye had less to do with the will of its people, or its landowners, than with
the direct and indirect consequences of the development of Kwajalein Naval Base following
1944, and its following manifestations. Ideology came second to military consideration, if at
all, and military consideration came second to none. This was not the case for Majuro, which
in large part was affected by the ideology of American colonial management as it were in
TTPI. Thomas Gladwin elaborates (Gladwin, 1954 in Hanlon, 1998: 5):
Americans have long been noted for their conviction that their political, social
and economic philosophy is the best ever developed, not only for Americans
but for everyone. This is nowhere so evident as in the administration of
dependent peoples. It is sometimes extraordinarily difficult to persuade
people that the institutions which have made the United States great may not
fit Micronesian society at all.
53
The TTPI government sought to develop and rebuild post-war Micronesia by a
developmental discourse rooted in the West; a discourse applied on Marshallese (among
other peoples), by Western colonizers seeking to justify their own actions; a sense of
Orientalism14 (Hanlon, 1998: 10). The essence of this colonialism can then be assumed to lie
“…less in political overrule than in seizing and transforming “others” by the very act of
conceptualizing, inscribing, and interacting with them on terms not of their choosing: in
making them into the pliant objects and silenced subjects of our scripts and scenarios; in
assuming to “represent” them, the active verb itself conflating politics and poetics”
(Comaroff & Comaroff, 1991: 15). The comment, in actuality an introspection (of sorts)
directed at anthropologists, is just as easily applied to the TTPI.
Hoping to influence and alter through development the political structures in
Micronesia the TTPI government carried out a series of experiments of state, with the first
election for Palau, Yap, and the Marshalls taking place in 1947. “In the end [the
Micronesians], in every island group except the Marshalls, […] decided not to integrate
traditional leaders into the modern political system” (Hezel, 2001: 129). This meant that the
power of most chiefs in Micronesia weakened, relative to the common stock who gained
power and money through politics and the influx of cash from outside sources, much to the
delight of TTPI government (Hezel, 2001: 130). “Only in the Marshalls, where paramount
chiefs regularly run for the national legislature, is there no separation of [a customary realm,
and a realm of politics]” (Hezel, 2001: 132-133). The act of “development” does not
transform the ideals of the colonized so much as change the mechanisms by which they may
attain that which they seek (Sahlins, 1992: 13-14); “the impulse of local people in the Pacific,
and elsewhere, is not to become like us […], but to become more like themselves” (Hanlon,
1998: 12)15. Referencing Sahlins, and proving the point, Hanlon writes: “witness the
disturbance and suffering caused by the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, and the
more recent efforts of the Marshallese government to capitalize on them” (Hanlon, 1998:
13).
14
Orientalism is a concept describing the reductionist perspectives by which (an equally conceptual) western
world conceptualizes “the east”. See Edward W. Said’s book Orientalism (1978) for more information.
15
Hanlon’s reinterpretation of Sahlins is more open than the original phrasing; in which Sahlins primarily
concerns himself with commercial interests, and reads “the first commercial impulse of the local people is not
to become just like us, but more like themselves” (Sahlins, 1992: 13).
54
Compact of Free Association
In the Marshalls the TTPI agreement carried on until 1986, despite a planned termination for
1981 (Hanlon, 1998: 103). The Compact of Free Association was implemented the very same
year (Hanlon, 1998: 217), and by extent of its laws, bylaws, and subsidiary agreements, the
U.S. remains in rather firm control of the Marshalls; possibly with a lesser degree of
responsibility than during the Trust Territory period. This arrangement also offers a degree
of autonomy to the Marshallese, be it by suspension of disbelief (illusion) or otherwise
(Hanlon, 1998: 230-231).
“…The Compact of Free Association […] recognizes their sovereignty, their
right to complete control over all domestic and international matters, and
their authority to conduct their own foreign affairs though in consultation
with the United States. The United States, assuming responsibility for all
defense and security matters, pledges in the compact to defend the freely
associated states “as if they were a part of the United States”” (Hanlon, 1998:
222, referring to United States House of Representatives, 1985: 516)
The financial terms of the compact granted the Marshalls around $ 37 million annually, with
an additional “first-year appropriation of $ 150 million to cover United States liabilities
incurred by its nuclear-testing program in the Marshalls. In addition, the people of the
irradiated atolls of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utirik are guaranteed a total of $
183,750,000 million in payments, while another $ 45.75 million has been set aside to handle
any outstanding or additional claims filed before a government-appointed claims tribunal
following the implementation of the compact. […] Total compensation for American nuclear
testing in the Marshalls as authorized in the compact and related agreements comes to
about $ 420 million” (Hanlon, 1998: 223-224)17. The terms of the compact also guaranteed a
certain level of infrastructure – both within RMI, and between RMI and the U.S. – to be
16
Complete reference: United States House of Representatives (1985) Approving the Compact of Free
Association with the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia and Approving Conditionally the
Compact of Free Association with Palau: Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs together with
th
Supplemental Views (Including Cost Estimate of the Congressional Budget Office) on H. J. Res. 187. 99 Cong.,
st
1 sess., 99-198, Pt. 1, 1 July 1985. Washington, D. C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
17
Hanlon operates with estimates. See United States Congress (1986: 16-23) for original figures.
55
provided for by the U.S, and settles certain judicial matters pertaining to the relationship
between the RMI and the U.S.. Hanlon (1998: 224)18 summarizes:
The compact and its subsidiary agreements also commit the United States to
provide at no cost to the […] Marshalls […] an extensive international
telecommunications network, airline and airport safety services, a regulatory
system for commercial air traffic, natural disaster relief, weather forecasting
services, and use of the United States Postal Service’s international facilities.
Other subsidiary agreements address marine space jurisdiction, military use
and operating rights agreements, and legal matters involving extradition,
liability, prosecution, and immunity.
Emigration and Life Overseas
Circa 300 Marshallese were living overseas anno 1980 (not including those attending
college) (Hezel, 2001: 146), whereas circa 5,00019 Marshallese could be found living in
Hawai’i and the mainland U.S. by 2001 (Hess, Nero & Burton, 2001: 89). The implementation
of the Compact led to notable levels of emigration, as pointed out by Hezel (2001: 145):
After the Compact of Free Association went into effect in the Federated States
of Micronesia and the Marshalls in 1986, the first serious emigration from
these groups began. […] During the late 1980s, as the number of new jobs
decreased to about four hundred a year, emigration from the Federated
States and the Marshalls began in earnest. […] Admission into the cash
economy was becoming an imperative for the young.
Hezel furthermore reports that Costa Mesa, a blue-collar town in Orange County, California,
grew from around 300 Marshallese in 1991 to a total of 800 Marshallese in 1999 – and was
at the time considered the “official” Marshallese overseas community (Hezel, 2001: 150).
Hezel (2001: 145) summarizes the rationale behind the emigration:
18
For additional information see United States Congress (1986: 19-23; 27-33).
Hess, Nero & Burton (2001) estimates that «over two thousand [Marshallese live] in Hawai’i» and that
«three-to-four thousand Marshallese now live on the U.S. mainland»
19
56
Marshallese, from the start, had moved east to Hawai’i in preference to
Guam, and before long they were establishing small communities in
California. The destinations became more numerous and more geographically
diverse, as recruiters came to the islands to find cheap labor and immigrants
shifted to wherever work could be found. […] Hundreds of Marshallese are
working in Arkansas on a gigantic poultry farm. The recruiters continue to
target the islands even now as a source of cheap and reliable untrained labor
for large businesses in the United States.
As an increasing number of Marshallese people moved abroad they established new ties
with the larger world, and goods flowed freely (both ways) between RMI and the U.S., just
like the people and “just as they would be if all were living on the same island” (Hezel, 2001:
153). The people of the Pacific have for thousands of years travelled the ocean, “importing”
and “exporting” things of interest as they went along on their journeys. This is no different
for Marshallese “diaspora” today. Islands – from an Oceanian point of view – are not
separate entities, but rather interconnected. It is less a matter of “islands in a far sea [than] a
sea of islands” (Hau’ofa, 1993: 152), and the interconnectivity extends well beyond Oceania
and into other continents; by way of ever-expanding networks of kinship throughout which
the people of Oceania “circulate themselves, their relatives, their material goods, and their
stories” (Hau’ofa, 1993: 155). Oceania is in other words made manifest through mobility
(Hau’ofa, 1993: 154-156; 158).
Perceived Remoteness
The perceived remoteness of the Marshalls from the perspectives of larger geopolitical
actors has rather strikingly had the effect of placing it at the centre of crucial events
pertaining to the larger world. The 68 atomic bomb detonations between 1946 and 1958 are
but one example of a larger phenomenon. Marshallese have as such suffered the will and
might of the larger world, and the effects thereof, for a long period of time. Climate change
should therefore be seen as a continuation of a long legacy in which suffering comes to the
coast by the virtue of others. The Marshallese are playing the role of extras, or providing the
backdrop and the stage, whereas the main cast drives the plot forward – and drives the
oceans up. This makes it particularly difficult for the Marshallese to act upon their own
57
world, considering how it has been appropriated as a stage by and for others. In this regard
it is possible to see in-group blame, as demonstrated by Rudiak-Gould (2013: 15-39; 117143), as an opposition to 100 – 200 years of increasing powerlessness; as a preservative for
cultural agency, and as a far better alternative than resigned apathy. The shared historical
experience of what today constitutes the people of the Marshall Islands impacts how the
Marshall Islanders of today perceive current events, and their ideas and conceptions of
climate change.
58
III: Everyday Life, and the Incursion of
Post-Flood Constraints
It can be useful to explore both the subsistence and the material composition of the
household in order to appreciate the realities of life in RMI, and particularly the comparative
differences between rural Arno and the capital; this is done in order to more fully appreciate
the realities faced by urban and rural denizens; and lastly in order to establish a sufficient
backdrop for the in-depth examination of subsistence issues in post-flood Arno. According to
the 2011 Census of Population and Housing, Final Report as many as 27,797 people inhabit
Majuro atoll, and the denizens of the urban capital are distributed across 4,092 households
(Marshall Islands, 2012: 443). Located around ten nautical miles to the east, Arno atoll
meanwhile houses 1,794 people dispersed among 261 households (Marshall Islands, 2012:
345). Comparatively speaking Arno is significantly more spacious than Majuro atoll, with
Arno’s islands making up a land area of 5.00 square miles with a density of 359 persons per
square mile versus Majuro’s 3.75 square miles with an average population density of 7,413
persons per square mile (Marshall Islands, 2012: 345; 443).
In terms of population density, urban areas like Ebeye (with 68,671 PPSM by
extrapolation) and Majuro (with its 7,413 PPSM20) are strained by the sheer mass of
buildings lining the preciously limited land (Marshall Islands, 2012: 411; 443). The growth
and condensation of the Marshallese population into urban areas consumes such a large
amount of space that rural subsistence patterns become displaced and discontinued due to
a lack of acreage. People are no longer able to hold proper gardens or cultivate food of any
sufficient volume. As urbanites are unable to produce sufficient food, they increasingly turn
towards the monetary economy for victuals, medicine, and shelter. However, as little as
20
It should be noted that Majuro atoll is urbanized towards the east, whilst it remains rural towards the west.
Majuro’s PPSM accounts for the entire atoll (including the more rural farmlands towards the west), and does
therefore not portray the PPSM of the urban east; which is significantly higher than the atoll average.
12,647 (or roughly 24%) of the Marshallese population are employed (Marshall Islands,
2012: 38). This means that large urban families at times are clustered around a single
breadwinner; attempting to feed seven (or more) people, as well as provide for the
education of the household’s children (beyond primary school). Rural areas like Arno
(measuring 359 PPSM) are on the other hand less populated (Marshall Islands, 2012: 345),
and the population is in turn less constrained relative to urban areas; allowing for greater
access to – or cultivation of – food crops, animal husbandry, and foraging. In other words,
where subsistence patterns and population density interact in a synergistic and destructive
manner in urban space, this is less the case for rural Arno.
That being said, I do not wish to falsely divide urban and rural space. While Majuro is
made up of a highly concentrated urban space (in which almost no vegetation can be seen)
occupying the easternmost part of the atoll, the atoll also consists of a rural farmland
towards the westernmost part of the atoll. While the majority of Majuro’s citizens are not
engaged in farming (of any large scale), the rural west – a place where farming occurs – is as
much a part of the atoll as the highly urbanized east. Furthermore, citizens travel between
atolls and islands; either seasonally or at more irregular intervals. The lines between what I
(rather clumsily) labelled urbanites and rural denizens are at best blurred. Arno’s
schoolteachers live rural lives, and participate in nonmonetary transactions – where goods
are acquired through trading equivalence – throughout the schoolyear. These teachers
simultaneously earn pay checks that they collect upon their return to Majuro. In-between
semesters these teachers live in the capital, urban lives and participate in a monetary
economy; sometimes functioning as breadwinners for entire households. The flow of people
between urban and rural space is an everyday occurrence.
In Between: Pre- and Post- Flood Placements in the Field
While transportation by boat is a common occurrence, it is never a sure thing, and boats
come and go as they please and at erratic intervals. A (un)expected delay had found me on
my way back from Arno to Majuro, and I therefore found myself boarding the boat a day late
on 4 March, 2014. The boat docked in one of the westernmost villages of Arno atoll, namely
Arno village. The 30 foot boat was open, with the exception of a tiny shelter in the form of a
60
wheelhouse. Inside the grey upon white carbon-fibre hull, occasionally splashed in light-blue
paint, one could find stacks upon stacks of burlap-bags; all faded brown and filled to the
brim with copra. The raw material was on its way to be processed and made into soaps and
oils at the Tobolar Copra Processing Plant, Inc. in Majuro, and then sold. Despite being in a
somewhat battered state – with cracks running parallel to the hull itself – the boat was one
of the main means of transportation between the Ratak Chain atolls of Arno and Majuro.
With two substantial outboard engines she was both quick and a relatively safe means of
transportation. Drifting caused by technical failure was less likely to occur with two engines.
I flung my backpack down amidst the red and yellow fuel containers on the deck, and lay
down on top of the piled brown bags, leaving behind the lush greens of the tropical atoll; the
green shades of coconut-leaves intermingling with the darker green of pandanus. The
greyish brown of the coconut-tree trunks form a backdrop for the waxy-green leaves of the
ocean-side plants; a feature protecting the more fragile interior forest against the frequent
spray of the salty sea. As wisps of white foam tossed into the air and drifted on the wind
onto yellow and white flowers of Atat (Triumfetta procumbens) and Konat (Scaevola
taccada), I inhaled the sweet fragrance of my impromptu copra bed as the air met and
mingled with the smells of the sea and the local vegetation. I knew the smell of copra would
linger on my clothes.
The crossing between Arno and Majuro was relatively peaceful; I dulled my eyes and
fell into a sleep of sorts, under a blanket of froth from the ocean; the boat cut through the
ocean in a manner which threw water up into the air around me, only to fall down salt on
my lips, wet and cold on my body. There was rain in the air, but this was nothing unusual.
The wind appeared no stronger than any other day. I woke up as we came into Majuro
lagoon, still floating upon the many hues of the blue Pacific Ocean. A sense of brooding
lingered in the damp air; it was indistinct and yet heavy upon the mind. The captain docked
the boat and the crew unloaded its cargo; copra now wet from the sea, people drenched
from top to toe, yellow bananas, brown coconuts, green and yellow-orange pandanus fruit,
and a small pig ripe for slaughter. All along the concrete pier family members greeted their
relatives coming in from Arno, some collected cargo and others went on their way down a
small opening crammed in between two houses made of plywood, bricks, corrugated iron
and concrete; the boat owner’s home.
61
Photo 2. Eroded foundations. The structural integrity of this house on the ocean-side of a Majuro
settlement has been weakened, so that the structure has partially collapsed under its own weight.
Once on the dock I met with a friend of mine; a contact from the local USP campus.
Not seeing her at first, still dull from my slumber, I called her up on my cell phone. The reply
came from only six meters away: “I’m right here!” I picked up my backpack and walked up to
her where she continued, “Have you heard? There’s a flood. Did you see anything in Arno?” I
was still in the dark and replied “no” and “nothing unusual”, though admittedly I had not
spent enough time there to know what something unusual would look like. She went on to
tell me that an extreme king tide had flooded large parts of the atolls Majuro, Arno, and Mili
during night-time. She spoke of how people had been shook awake by the pounding of the
waves on the walls of their houses, and the following damages. In a poorer section of the
Rita district around one thousand people had to seek refuge in nearby schools and churches
as their homes had been completely destroyed or irreparably damaged during the first flood
(see Photo 2). Notably these were people who lacked the necessary funds for resilience and
mitigation measures, and as such were less resilient in the face of this unexpected, violent,
62
and very rapid change to their daily lives. It would seem that even on a relatively flat atoll, an
allegedly egalitarian setting where everyone would be affected in the same way by a rising
ocean (after all a meter is a meter), the poor suffer the most. Money affords not only better
resilience in terms of building seawalls and solid foundations, but also in terms of the
immediate mitigation efforts. This is of course nothing new. That being said the emergency
response, and the following declaration of a state of emergency did benefit the people who
now had to rebuild their lives, though to what degree I cannot say.
The Households of Majuro
When I set out for Majuro I knew I was heading for a different way of life than that of Arno.
In Majuro most people shelter inside walls of concrete, brick or stone, with the majority of
the remaining citizens sheltering themselves within wooden walls (typically plywood)
(Marshall Islands, 2012: 453). The great majority of households are kept dry from the rain,
and sheltered from the sun, by galvanized tin or aluminium tin roofs. The structures are for
the most part illuminated by electric lights that draw their power from the capital’s power
grid, which in turn is powered by Majuro’s two power plants – utilizing diesel21 generators to
create electricity (Marshalls Energy Co., 2005) – and a 36.5 million gallon collection system
collects water from the runway surface of Amata Kabua International Airport; the water is
supplemented by seven wells in Laura village, filtered and cleaned, and transported through
Majuro in distribution mains (Graham, 2007: 11; 28). Most households get their drinking
water from the 36.5 million gallon reserve, as well as smaller personal or communal water
catchments and rainwater collection systems; collecting rainwater from roofs by rain gutters
and into tanks or drums. The majority of the households turn to gas in order to prepare their
food, while some cook using electricity (Marshall Islands, 2012: 448). Only a minority of
households use coconut fibres or shells for kitchen fires.
Food comes from a variety of subsistence related activities, both monetary and
nonmonetary. Around one fourth of the households are supported by fishing, with the
majority of these households fishing only for their subsistence needs (Marshall Islands, 2012:
455). Another fourth of the households engage in raising livestock (pigs and chickens), and
21
The diesel is shipped into RMI from abroad, by large oceangoing ships.
63
mostly outside of the monetary economy (Marshall Islands, 2012: 456). Close to two thirds
of the households grow crops, predominantly for subsistence purposes (nonmonetary)
(Marshall Islands, 2012: 454). The employment offered in the capital contributes to Majuro’s
subsistence practices, and in a large way. The minority lucky enough to be part of the
workforce engage in everything from government work and politics (both at the micro-,
meso-, and macrolevel), attend to hole-in-the-wall shops, and drive taxis. Others are
employed in the local supermarkets, tool stores, by hotels and restaurants, or work as
mechanics, and others still promise services to a fleet of industrial tuna purse seiners22 that
anchor in Majuro lagoon. That being said, with a working age of fifteen years and up, and
with a total 17,681 Marshallese making up the potential workforce, there is a staggering rate
of 10,593 unemployed (or about 62% of the working-age population23). Work in the
Marshallese capital is scarce. The incomes acquired from monetary engagements are again
used, in part, in the local supermarkets; for purchases of food and clothing for household
members. Supermarkets have become a part of the subsistence habits that people rely on to
put food on the table. A buying pattern that favours unhealthy and processed food imported
from abroad has emerged, and this impacts Marshallese health negatively. Thaman
elaborates (2006: 43):
…the abandonment of traditional food and beverage crops in favour of
imported foods such as sugar, white rice and flour, biscuits, noodles, canned
fish, soft drinks, alcohol, tea and coffee, has led to dangerous levels of food
dependency and some of the highest, or most rapidly increasing, incidences in
the world of vitamin and mineral deficiency and nutrition-related diseases.
Diseases such as anaemia, night blindness, diabetes, cardiovascular disease,
hypertension and stroke, gout and hyperuricemia, as well as some forms of
cancer and dental disease, which were rarely encountered in the past, are
now serious causes of morbidity and mortality in the Marshall Islands.
I did however know little about how a flood would affect the urban population. Prior to the
event I had assumed that the few plants and trees that could be found in urban space were
of diminished importance. My assumption was based on the role played by supermarkets,
22
The tuna purse seiners operate within RMI’s EEZ in accordance to the requirements set by the PNA.
Calculations based on the reported figures of the 2011 Census. For original figures see Marshall Islands, 2012:
444.
23
64
and the related adverse effects on health as described by Thaman above; my assumption
was about to be challenged.
Amber Palm Fronds and Bare Breadfruit Trees
Rubble could be seen lining the streets, and was otherwise scattered throughout the limited
vegetation of the urban capital. As the ocean had pounded the atoll into temporary
submission, 3 March, the currents collected garbage from around the island, and then threw
it back up on shore where the waves struck at housing, land, and vegetation. The limited
vegetation of grass, bananas (Musa cultivars), coconut trees (Cocos nucifera), breadfruit
(Artocarpus altilis, A. mariannensis, and A. altilis x A. mariannensis), and other plants were
still retaining their shades of green on 4 March, but another storm surge was on its way, and
people were unsure as to what they should expect. A great deal of saltwater had already
inundated the atoll, and the salt remained in the ground; poisoning both the vegetation and
the freshwater lens that atoll life depends on. Banana plants had begun showing signs of
succumbing to inundation, with leafs turning increasingly yellow and then a dry brown.
Branches were drooping towards the ground, or had broken off entirely. Waves had carried
some of the housing off its stilts, and other houses had become undermined by erosion;
suffering structural collapses. Tombs had been eroded away by the waves, and in certain
cemeteries the ancestors’ remains were exposed. Poorly constructed housing had lost walls
to the force of the waves, and garbage and rubble had flown into every thinkable crook and
cranny. Cleaning efforts were underway, and improvised seawalls – made from garbage and
coral sand – were erected using bulldozers. Green areas by the ocean side were torn up in a
last ditch effort to stop the incoming waves. The second surge was not as strong as the first
one, and even though the waves were digging away at the improvised seawalls they do not
reach further inland. As the urban section of Majuro is severely lacking when it comes to
windbreaks, the salt spray penetrated inland. By 5 March plants and trees considered to be
salt resistant were beginning to show signs of inundation related damages; the hardy Indian
mulberry (Morinda citrifolia) had dropped some additional fruits to the ground, and certain
coconut palms had turned yellow and dropped the majority of their coconuts. Less resistant
vegetation such as the banana plant had begun visibly rotting on its trunk, leafs beginning to
65
shrivel. The affected breadfruit trees had begun to turn brown and dry, and the grass had
begun to lose its colour.
By 7 March the most exposed breadfruit trees had dropped most of their fruits and
leafs – resembling white skeletal hands that reached for the sky –, and the ground below
them was covered in fallen leafs. Most of the grass was grey, had shrivelled away
completely, and had begun to rot. An increasing number of coconut branches were dead,
and even the pandanus (Pandanus tectorius or P. odoratissimus) showed signs of stress; with
leafs turning grey and dry. On 9 March most of the affected banana plants stood on grey
trunks, and the majority of their branches were grey or a burnt orange and a pale yellow.
Only the occasional leaf had green in it, and while some fruit still clung to the crown of
certain plants, most plants had begun tilting dangerously to one side or the other. When
viewed from afar the banana gardens appeared as outcroppings of pure bright orange. Most
of the debris and rubble that came with the flood had been cleared up, or collected in piles,
and while material damages were being amended the vegetation turned increasingly poor in
state. The branches of coconut trees and the leafs of pandanus trees were dry and grey in
increasing number, and most breadfruit trees were now naked.
The devastation of the breadfruit was initially made clear to me while photographing
inundation effects with a Marshallese colleague on 7 March. When we first encountered the
dying – or severely diminished – trees he commented upon how disastrous it was for their
owners that the trees no longer held fruit. The breadfruit was just about to come into
season, and would have provided a much welcomed food source if not for the recent
saltwater inundation. Now the affected families had to find a different source of food to
replace the expected seasonal yield. While food was available through supermarkets and
various smaller shops, it was not given that the affected families could afford to purchase
enough food to replace the expected yield of breadfruit; at the very least their economy
would tighten significantly. Our walk carried on, and I began to ponder how the flood might
have impacted more rural settings such as Arno, especially considering how even the
urbanites of Majuro were visibly impacted by the diminished yield of subsistence-related
food crops. After observing the severity of saltwater inundation on the urban population, I
postulated a theory that the impact of the 3 – 5 March storm surge was likely to have even
more severe effects for the rural denizens of Arno. I decided it was time to go somewhere a
66
bit more remote, to a place where the dependency between land and life was even greater
than in Majuro – where market goods made up such a large part of everyday life.
A Topography of Loss
With the help of the University of the South Pacific (USP), I manage to get an opportunity to
go to the affected Rearlaplap section of Arno, and stay with a family there. I prepare the
necessary supplies of rice and flour, keeping in mind that food will be scarce after the
damaging flood, and set off by boat on 29 March. We arrive on the very same day, in Malel;
where we have to dock around 20 meters from the beach so as not to get stranded by the
tides. As soon as the boat pulls to a stop, most of the boys and men jump in the water;
lugging cargo from the open boat through the water onto the beach. The azure waters
gently lap onto the beach; washed out yellow in colour and consisting of finely grained coral
sand. Around three meters further inland a line of coconut trees run parallel to the beach
itself, spaced out at an interval of around two and a half meters. We glimpse a clearing
beyond the trees, starting behind the tree line and stopping at a red-brown dirt road further
in. A corrugated iron shack marks the far left whereas the opposite side is completely open
until it hits a collection of coconut trees. Aside from a miniscule incline of around one meter
from the beach up to the tree line the rest of the clearing appears flat and even declines a
bit towards the road. No outcroppings, hills or slopes of any size can be seen from my
vantage point just beyond the beach. In fact, only a miniscule amount of the landmass of the
Republic of the Marshall Islands ever rises above two meter above sea level. The boat sets
out for Majuro as soon as all of its cargo has found its way onto the beach. A small crowd has
gathered just beyond the tree line. We are inside the easternmost part of the central lagoon
at Malel, and are heading for the farthest settlement in Rearlaplap, namely Langor. Arno
atoll is divided into three lagoons, and Langor is posited around the third and easternmost
one. As the captain of the boat opted for a shorter and safer route inside the main lagoon
we had to stop at Malel, as the main lagoon and the eastern one is separated by a high coral
reef (exposed at low tide).
As luck would have it I manage to hitch a ride on one of three flatbed trucks, so we
load the cargo (and some people) onto the flatbed and off we go into the forest. The truck
67
driver is kind enough to offer me a seat inside the driver’s compartment and he promptly
fills me in on information about the different villages and places as we run by them, as well
as the situation with the current and past floods. As we cruise down the dirt-road it quickly
becomes apparent how important bulldozers had been in the immediate crisis response,
though by now they are relocated to another atoll for similar work. The dirt road is not only
a distinct feature of the landscape, but a marked feature of everyday life. Going parallel to
the beaches, and for the most part veering close to the lagoon, the road comes across as a
dividing line between the lagoon-side settlements and the deeper ocean-side forest, an
environmental or topographical marker of sorts. The road connects all the villages so that
they can be accessed at all hours both by car and by foot, something I later learn offered
greater mobility than only 20-30 years ago when people had to wait for the low tide to walk
along the lagoon-side beach. Accessing the three trucks changed the way the locals access
different parts of the atoll as well as how they move heavy cargo, goods, copra, and even
how they get to church for Sunday service, not to mention that boats now dock in Malel
even when they bring people to and from Langor. As the truck swivels around sharp bends
and potholes, skips along the uneven road while the suspension and undercarriage
screeches from the ever-present workload, the blazing sun increasingly disappears behind
the tall coconut trees that make up the forest canopy.
Upon entering the denser forest I realize that the underbrush is chaotic: Piles of
debris and deadfall, yellow coconut branches, fallen trunks and rotten coconuts, are spread
out densely throughout the underbrush, caught horizontally between the trunks of coconut
trees. It is as if one can see the direction of the flood as debris was flushed out with the
current, getting caught between the trees, too wide to pass between the individual trunks.
Most of the standing coconut trees show signs of inundation as the coconuts who have
fallen from the crown to the ground remain very young (at around 1 – 1 ½ fists in size). The
small number of coconuts still left hanging make the trees appear barren, and most of the
branches are orange and dry, reminiscent of the deadfall. A few pandanus trees are rotting
on their trunks. We come upon several sizeable piles of coarse Waini (brown coconuts) by
the roadside, oftentimes near tall rectangular copra cooking stations; boxes or chimneys
about 1m in height and made from corrugated iron topped with chicken wire. The chimneys
are designed to dry copra out over hot air, and seal it with rising smoke; this inhibits the
68
growth of mould and decomposition, and decreases the likelihood of self-combustion while
en route by boat to Majuro. The process ensures a better quality product than that dried by
sunlight, which is the most common practice throughout the atolls of the Pacific. The
technique used in Rearlaplap is somewhat of a necessity due to the humidity and presence
of rain outside the dry season. Many of the chimneys appear to be in a functional state –
with men working the pile of husks next to the station – whereas others have been knocked
over, or have collapsed into heaps of wooden beams and scrap metal; having lost crucial
materials to the floodwaters.
We come upon several villages on our way down the road, and some are more
densely populated with houses of different sizes, whereas others are smaller and more
sparsely populated (with one or two solitary houses). Most of the houses are made out of
plywood walls (and windows), corrugated iron sheet roofs, and are set atop concrete
foundations. Every once in a while we come across houses made from local materials,
occasionally patched up with some black impregnated wood or a few sheets of corrugated
iron or plywood. Some of these villages have conspicuously large concrete and cinderblock
churches in their midst, and the churches are seemingly able to accommodate the
population of several villages, and stand surrounded by small clearings; churches constitute
focal points for everyday life; as most if not all villagers worship the Christian God in some
way or another. The villages further up the road are in different states of disrepair. In one of
the villages the fine-grained coral sand is interrupted by naked concrete foundations;
rectangular slabs of grey with nothing left standing on them and no debris in sight, no
corrugated iron, no plywood and no bricks. The driver merely points out that the village is
the home of the local nurse and that it was destroyed by the floodwaters. During later stages
of fieldwork it becomes apparent that the eerie absence of wreckage was caused by the
floodwaters not only pounding a few of the structures to bits, but also flushing the
remaining debris out into the lagoon, leaving behind naught but eerie absence. Rebuilding
the vanished housing is impossible as all the building material has disappeared alongside the
housing itself.
Two minutes further down the road we encounter another village that stands out:
There are large structural damages to the lagoon-side housing, where two cinderblock and
corrugated iron houses have been moved off their concrete foundations and one traditional
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Photo 3. Naked breadfruit trees. The breadfruit tree in the foreground dwarfs all its surrounding
structures, but stands bereft of both fruit and leafs as a result of the 3 March flood.
70
style cookhouse has partially collapsed. However, what really stands out is a large fenced in
area on the right-hand side of the road, more akin to a garbage heap than a garden. Prior to
the flood the pit served as a source of food, but now most of the banana plants have
withered away completely, leaving only two-tree specimens behind; all dry, rotting and of a
pale grey and yellow colour, tinged only with a few streaks of green. Where one would
imagine there to be dense vegetation there is now an open space, the soil unprotected from
the sun. Coconuts, broken off pieces of corrugated iron sheets, and other debris has been
thrown into the pit. Around 10 meters further away stands a giant skeletal hand stretching
towards the sky, a dead breadfruit tree dwarfing the surrounding structures (see Photo 3), in
a fashion similar to those encountered in Majuro. The tree would normally be brimming with
green leafs, and be weighed down by heavy oblong fruits, but this was no longer the case.
Breadfruit trees figure prominently in most village courtyards, as the usually lush canopy
provides pleasant spots to lounge away from the blistering sun, and the many-fingered leafs
are used as fans on days when the air is stagnant.
Eventually the truck stops at one of the white courtyard clearings; a village of seven
buildings of various shapes and sizes, and my to-be home in Arno. One of the buildings is a
concrete church, set on a rectangular base. The walls are decorated with holes through
which the air flows freely. A long cookhouse stands opposite to the church, and does
seemingly consist of nothing but corrugated iron sheets, but with a framework construction
of impregnated wooden beams, and local wood from various species. Next to the cookhouse
a simple plywood building topped with corrugated iron roof sits on a heightened concrete
foundation. A tall radio communications mast24 stands erected against one of the sides of
the building, and the mast consists of a metal beam attached to some longer plastic shafts
akin to broom handles, held together by rope, fishing lines, and tape, and topped with a CB
radio antenna. A wire runs from the plywood building and up the makeshift mast all the way
to the antenna at the top; this is one of the few CB radios to remain functional during and
after the flood, and the particular household does as such have an important role in the
organization of trips (by boat) to and from Rearlaplap, as well as in a more general
communication between Rearlaplap people and their relatives in Majuro.
24
According to US broadcast engineering terminology.
71
Shifts in Material Consumption in a Post-Flood Setting
The household is a pertinent unit of analysis for understanding the predicaments of
everyday life, and figures as a key social organization that enables people’s survival in a
harsh environment. Households provide focal-points for everyday chores, as familymembers sleep together on the same land tract, eat together in the cookhouse (mõn kuk),
and do various chores around the plot or on accompanying land tracts. Women and men
usually work separate chores and in separate places, but both genders conduct work that
again benefits their household. Men’s and women’s work is not mutually exclusive, but it is
expected that women do certain chores; like prepare food, wash clothes and keep the
household; while men collect food, tend gardens, repair houses as well as commit other acts
of hard physical labour, as well as catch fish.
Most households consist of a husband and wife, their children, and (occasionally)
their children’s children as well as their children’s wives or husbands. Landownership is
principally legitimized through matrilineal ties, as land is considered to belong to the women
of the family, but bilateral tendencies are observed. While patterns of residency in my
experience tend towards the virilocal, both uxorilocality and virilocality remain valid
practices. It is possible that this preference for virilocality corresponds with observed
tendencies for patriarchal executions of power – over land and people – with borrowed
legitimacy from their matrilineal ties. The male head of the family makes executive decisions
by virtue of his ties to his mother, and at times against his mother’s will. Bilateral practices of
landownership can as such be seen as an effect of an increasing crystallization of patriarchal
power within certain families, or feuds within the family. The picture is however muddled by
the reality that matriarchs oftentimes exercise power from out of sight, by male proxy,
implying that the acts of men follow the will of the traditional owners of the land, their
mothers and sisters.
Houses usually have different functions: there is the mõn kuk and the mõn kiki – the
former for preparing and eating food whereas the latter is for sleeping – and one also finds
mõn kakugi, which translates to house of rest (literally: house rest). A dedicated cookhouse
may however double as a house for sleep when the households receive guests. The houses
that make up the household are usually clustered together on a plot of land, and most of
these clusters are placed right next to Arno’s dirt road; like pearls on a string. The land tracts
72
– called weto – are dominantly structured with housing on one side of the road (usually the
ocean side) and with coconut forest on the other side of the road. The houses are placed
more or less on top of the beach (by the lagoon) whereas the coconut forests are deeper
and make up most of the weto. The weto cuts across the length of the atoll; all going from
the lagoon side and over to the ocean side, and accessing both the lagoon and the ocean.
While thatched houses provide more comfortable living arrangements with regards to heat
regulation – allowing inhabitants to stay cool on warm and sunny days, yet not become too
cold during night time – plywood buildings with galvanized tin roofs have become the norm.
Plywood and tin housing requires less maintenance than housing thatched from pandanus or
coconut leaf, and are therefore preferred despite becoming uncomfortably hot and stuffy
under the mid-day sun.
A typical day begins at around 7am, with the sun barely peeking over the horizon. As I
walk out the door, leaving the sleeping figures of the mõn kiki (house for sleep behind), I can
hear sounds lingering on the cool and damp morning air. It is coming from the cookhouse
just opposite me and it seems that C. and K., the mother and father of the family, are waking
up. I turn to the left, and walk past the CB radio communications mast to the nearby water
catchment. Crouching forward I turn the tap and quickly wash my hands and face so as to
waste as little water as possible; conservation is important as freshwater is a limited
resource (see Chapter VI), even during the wet season. Potable water is for the most part
procured through rainwater collection and water catchments; with rainwater collecting on
the roofs of households, and then pouring down rain gutters and into tanks or drums.
I close the tap, having washed the sleep from out of my eyes, and start looking at the
landscape and the surrounding structures. Everything looks grey and blue in the morning
light. The greens of the rainforest, the whites of the courtyard pebbles, and even the blue
hues of the lagoon all flow into each other and become one under a grayscale palette. The
door of the cookhouse opens and a sliver of dim white light slips out just as the father of the
household steps forth into the shadows. The man, a heavyset figure of medium height, walks
towards the water catchment, the rattle of pebbles accompanying him all the way, and turns
the tap. He greets me “morning” and says that coffee will be ready as soon as the water is
Bwil (hot). I accompany him back to the cookhouse were we kick off our flip-flops, and step
inside the wood and corrugated iron building.
73
We are engulfed by the dim yet somehow harsh white light of a compact fluorescent
lamp, and seat ourselves on two tired and partially broken plastic chairs. A metal sheet
dining table sits between us, and it is filling up most of the room. The local reality is by and
large made up of wares and objects that are produced outside of Rearlaplap, and that
consequently will have to be brought in by way of oceangoing boats. The flow of goods by
way of boats constitutes an economically demanding aspect of everyday life, and one that
ties in to the American dollar; a resource one rarely comes by on the outer islands. As such
the frequency of transportation (of both people and merchandise) is infrequent at best.
Money procured through monetary transactions can be spent in the local family stores,
where an assortment of goods such as flour and rice are bought and acquired through
trading equivalence. In Rearlaplap this trade is divorced from monetary transaction in the
sense that money only occasionally changes hands, and Rearlaplap may as such be
considered a sphere of trading equivalence. That being said the value of copra and the value
of goods are calculated in USD, and storeowners later resell the copra they acquire to the
capital (Majuro); receiving hard cash in return. The storeowners then purchase goods in the
capital via monetary transaction, and the new wares are transported by boat to their outer
island shop; and into the sphere of trading equivalence.
Back in the cookhouse some smoke drifts by from behind a small partition in the
rightmost portion of the cookhouse, leaving my eyes sore. The mother of the family peers
out at us from behind the partition, says iokwe in jibbõn (good morning), and offers us bwil
(hot water). An assortment of different knifes are hanging on the wall. The blades vary in
size and most of them have makeshift handles made from two separate pieces of wood
tightly wrapped in fishing line. Just to the left a small portion of the wall, about the size of a
small kitchen cabinet, extends out towards the lagoon. Two perforated shelves run across
this space, and on them various pans and plates have been placed alongside some assorted
goods; tea, tabasco, instant coffee, sugar, creamer and some flour. Some cutlery is placed on
the lower shelf in a big cup right next to a round cake tin, and does for the most part consist
of spoons. One more cup and some glass containers can be seen on the top shelf. Just
beneath the hole-in-the-wall kitchen cabinet two tubs (one made from tin the other made
from plastic) are standing right next to each other on top of a wooden plank running parallel
to the wall. To the left of the cabinet a hard plastic buoy has been cut in two and mounted
74
on the wall, so that the lower half forms an open sink. A drainage pipe runs from underneath
the buoy, beneath the lagoon-side wall, and then outside the mõn kuk (cookhouse).
Ingenuity and adaptation marks daily life in Rearlaplap, and the rest of Oceania. Things are
incorporated into local or regional ways of being in a way which allows for clever
adaptations of technologies that originally were intended for other purposes entirely, in turn
providing or reinforcing a mix between local and global production or consumption. As such
the solutions to the disappearance or destruction of materials, by floodwaters, cannot
exclusively come from the local level, but does rely on the global to provide at least parts of
the solution. Improvisation can both be expansive and enveloping, as well as cannibalistic.
Whereas the first form of improvisation may open up new possibilities, or life adaptations,
the second form makes itself seen in scenarios of diminished resources, or where the
adaptations have incorporated wares or materials that no longer can be replaced on the
local level.
K. slowly picks up two cups from the top shelf and sets them both down atop the
dining table, the table giving of a minute clang as the glazed ceramic of the cups hits the
metal of the table. He then turns around to face the wall once more, picks up the coffee jar,
a box of non-dairy creamer, and a bag of refined cane sugar, and puts them down on the
table. He hands me a cup “for you” just as he slides the glass container of Japanese
produced ‘UCC The Blend 114’ instant coffee towards me. The mother puts an elongated
stainless steel kettle down onto the table, and returns to the smoke-filled smaller
compartment. Once inside she seats herself on another white plastic chair and tends to the
two fire pits to her right. The deep iron bowls are brimming with heat, orange tongues of
flame licking at the corrugated iron grate and the cooking containers above. A small bead of
sweat falls off her brow as she takes hold of the grate, with a coconut leaf, and moves it out
from the flames. Turning around she comes face to face with another smaller compartment
for firewood in which several coconut husks, shells, and dry branches are stored. She picks
up half a dry coconut husk and proceeds to tear up the inside fibres, making the fibre of the
husk less densely packed and thus more flammable. K.’s cooking illustrates one of the most
common complaints after the flood which is the lack of cutlery. The flood washed away
loose objects, including cutlery, and on one occasion a village representative filed complaints
75
concerning the difficulties faced by people attempting to prepare food, now that their
kitchens no longer hold the necessary tools, to the governmental body in charge of Arno.
After throwing the husk into the fire pit K. adjusts the grate once more, so that it sits
comfortably atop the centre of the flames. As the heat rises up and converges on a pot of
rice the water starts to expand and overflow, trickling down the sides of the casserole,
hissing as it evaporates against the insides of the hot metal bowl. Both flour and rice can be
bought in 10 kilogram bags in the local store, and in terms of store-bought products these
provide the main source for carbohydrates. Baked goods, produced using store-bought flour,
shortening, baking soda, and sugar provides both carbohydrates and fat; with the latter in
smaller quantities than the former. Depending on the household economy the mother
makes pancakes, flour-based bread (pilawã), biscuits, spherical doughnuts, or even
cinnamon buns, and additional protein and fat is made available from the store in the form
of spam and canned tuna. Back in the cookhouse, cones of black smoke rise from the kijeek
(fire), and sting the eyes.
I pour three spoonful´s of instant coffee into one of the ceramic cups before passing
the glass container back to K. He fills the other cup with hot water from the elongated kettle,
pulls a spoon out from inside the box of Western Family non-dairy creamer, pours some 114,
adds three spoons of creamer, and finally four topped spoons of Mitr Phol pure refined cane
sugar. After stirring the contents he lifts the cup to his lips, and takes a sip of what can only
be described as a form of liquid caramel. The cup goes back to the table, the father smiles,
and says emman kope (good coffee). In the cup the ingredients swirl together, a mix of
Japan, America, and Thailand, hazelnut brown and creamy white, adding up to a local staple,
and forming a part of the outer island reality. One of several examples of the importance of
flow in the Pacific Ocean; and another example of the flow that Hau’ofa (1993) referred to in
“Our Sea of Islands”.
The mother of the household reappears from out of the smoke, carrying a plate of
rice topped with a roasted fish; still in one piece and with the insides and scales removed.
She puts the plate down in front of me, and I start to eat, as grace already has been said. I
comment upon the delightful buttery flavour of the fish, truly mouth-watering, and the
father replies that the neighbour caught the fish turoñ (spearfishing) last night. Fishing is of
great importance in the post-flood landscape, and constitutes one of few remaining sources
76
for food that does not require participation in the local-store economy, with the notable
exception of acquiring and replacing hooks, lines, and sinkers. Virtually all households rely on
fishing in some way or another. In Arno life revolves around the ocean, and where foodcrops serve as a source for carbohydrates and energy, fishing supplies the main source of
protein.
Several different techniques are applied in order to catch fish, and fishing is at times
carried out in groups and at times carried out alone. Lone men carrying throwing-nets
(okkadkad) may stalk the length of the lagoon- or ocean-side beaches, while keenly
observing the water for signs of fish (ek). At night time the men who dare to spearfish swim
along the shore (ocean side); their venture aided only by underwater flashlights, navy-style
diving goggles, and three-pronged spears (jilupar). These men hunt both fish (ek) and lobster
(wõr); the latter only at certain cycles of the moon, when the lobsters congregate on the
ocean-side flat-top reef. The freediving underwater hunters additionally ply their craft inside
the lagoon, using outrigger canoes (kõrkõr) as diving platforms (see Photo 4); from which
they can hunt in familiar underwater landscapes (reef structures), and for familiar types of
fish. The kõrkõr is commonly employed in line-fishing (urõk), both inside the lagoon and (less
commonly) over open waters. Children also aid in certain fishing activities, learning by
mimesis or experimentation, such as catching sea-snails on the shallow flat-top lagoon-side
reef. In terms of nocturnal fishing activities children sometimes stalk the ocean-side reef
with machetes and flashlights; where the flashlights are used to temporarily confuse fish,
and the machetes are used to knock fish unconscious. When fishing expeditions and other
joint fishing ventures manage to produce a catch, it is to be divided among the participating
fishermen. In certain situations such as when a boat owner lends his kõrkõr to a group of
fishermen, a boat-owners share can be demanded as compensation for services rendered to
the fishermen by the boat owner; and this is regardless of whether or not the boat owner
participated in the fishing itself. Other exceptions occur when groups of men go fishing for
the express purpose of gathering food for a communal event, such as for a funeral. Most
fishing expeditions are however centred on providing for oneself and one’s family, and
usually culminate in the fishermen returning to their households with their share of the
catch; or they may even end up dividing their share amongst kin beyond the household.
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Photo 4. Fisherman about to dive into the lagoon. The outrigger (Kõrkõr) is used as a diving platform,
and gives the underwater hunters sufficient room to catch their breath during longer dives.
78
Outside the mõn kuk (cookhouse) K.S. is grating the inside of half a coconut on the
spiked metal end of a small wooden stool. After a while he throws the contents of the bowl
onto the ground, and a rooster, a hen, and around 10 chickens start fighting over the feed.
He continues by quickly husking and splitting a few coconuts in two, and throws them
towards the lagoon side of the mõn kuk (cookhouse), where a few pigs have gathered.
Feeding the birds and pigs is an important part of tending to the domestic animals, and this
is commonly done early in the morning, and again in the evening. In addition to fishing and
growing food crops, households typically raise livestock. Animal husbandry provides extra
protein; in the form of chickens (bao) and pigs (piik). Pigs are usually consumed at special
events like a first birthdays (keemem) – or on occasions of important visitors, and supplies a
rich source for protein and fat. It does however require time and energy to raise a pig of
sufficient size, both in terms of man-hours and in terms of providing/producing feed for the
pig, making this a luxury meat. Chickens on the other hand require less to breed and feed,
and are consumed at shorter intervals. That being said, chickens are much like pigs; reserved
for special occasions. While many of the locally bred pigs and chickens were reported to
have died in the flood, certain households had begun to recuperate some of their losses.
This does, however, not relinquish these families from the obligations they have of supplying
traditional foods/ingredients (pigs, chickens, breadfruit, coconut, and pandanus) for family
occasions taking place in Majuro. A few people even went so far as to suggest that their
family in Majuro did not understand, or even care, about the precarious situation of
Rearlaplap following the flood, and that the majority of their requests can be seen as selfish
due to the way the requests overreach what is feasible given the post-flood constraints; in
turn meaning that Rearlaplap locals would have to provide for others what they had
difficulty providing for themselves.
K.S. walks in the door, and stops by the tin tub beneath the kitchen cabinet. He picks
up an artificial fibre sponge, and begins cleaning a plate left behind by N. The plate is dipped
quickly into the plastic tub before he sets it atop the shelf to dry. The tin tub contains soap
water whereas the plastic tub holds clean freshwater. After eating and drinking coffee
between morning chores the two sons of the household head towards a weto (land tract)
located about 800 meters away as the crow flies. They are on their way to collect waini
(brown coconuts), a crucial component in the production of copra. I had previously been
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made aware by a part time resident (prior to the 3 March flood) that “copra production and
occasional fishing [is] the only thing that [keeps] people in Arno”, and the statement was
since repeated by other informants. One such instance took place on 3 April when K.S., S.A.,
and I went into the ´coconut-dominated agroforest and scrubland´ in Rearlaplap to gather
waini (brown coconuts), for the express purposes of producing copra. K.S. had just walked
off into the deeper forest when S.A. uttered the words “Ejjelok waini – no coconuts, ejjellok
mõñã – no food, ejjelok armej – no people”. I implored him to elaborate, and he replied; “if
we do not have any money we cannot buy food; rice and flour, in the shop. Ejjelok waini – no
coconuts, ejjelok mõñã – no food.” As I prompted him on whether or not locally produced
food was a viable option he replied, “without money we cannot buy flour and rice, and
[without flour and rice] we cannot live here” (my brackets). K.S. returned from the deeper
forest with a burlap bag filled with waini and confirmed S.A.´s statements. Following the
flood the production of copra has become increasingly important as it offers access to
(coveted) store-bought goods, which again constitutes one of the few available sources for
food in the post-flood landscape. The disappearance or death of most food crops results in
an increasing pressure being put on the small stores, which again leads to the stores running
out of now crucial foodstuffs such as rice and flour, which ultimately leads to food shortages
(or related difficulties) for some families in the gaps that appear, as stores require several
weeks or more to restock.
When lunchtime comes around familiar smells fill the air, alongside smoke that stings
the eyes, as C. returns to the fire pits for the second time today. At the fire pits C. is helped
along by the youngest member of the family; who is home for the local school’s lunchbreak.
Husks, shells, and dry branches of Cocos nucifera are once more brought forth from the
small storage compartment right next to the iron bowls of the cookhouse, to keep the fires
burning. It is not long before plates of food are added to the table, and it quickly becomes
apparent why the air carries with it a familiar odour; the meal does essentially consist of the
same ingredients as for breakfast, and some of the components have been reheated. One
notable exception is found in the form of newly baked bread. The bread (pilawã) is placed
onto the table on an oval plate; and is soon covered with a cake tin to ward off flies. While
C. is busying herself and N. with tending to the flames and preparing lunch, more family
members appear trough the northeast doorway. A.W. appears in the doorway, and he is
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subsequently invited in for lunch. It is not unusual for people to drop in like this around
meals, and particularly around lunchtime. Lunch is according to K.S. the most flexible meal,
either to be eaten as a guest wherever you happen to be at the time, or even skipped
completely. After a short rest K.S., S.A., and N. filter outside. K. remains behind entertaining
A.W. and P.L., whereas C. starts doing the clean-up work that comes with serving any meal.
She moves the leftover food from the table and into a cooler for conservation, and continues
by tending to the plates and cutlery now left in the soap filled tin tub beneath the kitchen
cabinet. A.W. and P.L. eventually leaves, and C. and K. resign to a rest of their own, one lying
down on the metal frame bed, and the other resting on the coconut leaf mats on the floor.
Prior to the flood, gardening practices used to provide everyday foodstuffs like
bananas (Pinana – Musa cultivars), certain root-vegetables, and sometimes papaya (Keinapu
– Carica papaya). Breadfruit (Mã – Artocarpus altilis, A. mariannensis, A. altilis x A.
Mariannensis), coconuts (Ni – Cocos nucifera), and pandanus (Bõb – Pandanus tectorius or
Pandanus odoratissimus) can usually be found scattered around the household. With the
overhanging absence of breadfruit, banana and other food plants most meals consist of fish
and rice. A few exceptions present themselves on occasions of important community events,
during which traditional foods are considered to be important. For keemem (first birthdays)
some food was usually imported from Majuro, to arrive on the boat alongside family
members traveling in for the occasion. That being said, the absence of most food plants is
still experienced through the absence of certain traditional foods.
Eventually C. returns to the washing tub by the southwest wall of the church,
whereas K. turns his attention elsewhere. Aside from ecclesiastical duties K., who is a
minister, spends time preparing materials for the production of handicrafts (amimõno),
planting Marshall Islands Green Dwarf (Cocos nucifera) around the land tract, and smaller
things like cleaning some dishes every once in a while. The management and utilization of
plants and trees is important, and handicrafts usually play a role in larger social gatherings
where coconut leaf mats and the likes regularly make up parts of the setting. More often
than not he is engaged in social matters, and the organizing of workgroups and social groups
for purposes ranging from gathering coral pebbles for courtyard restorations to church
gatherings or public gatherings. The social fabric of Rearlaplap is structured around the
church and the family, and as such both church and family constitute important levels of
81
organization around which community work becomes organized. The mother of the
household spends most of her time cleaning and cooking, and the time in-between washing
laundry, soaking and drying Pandanus leafs for the production of handicrafts, or preparing
large quantities of food alongside other women on the occasion of important visitors or an
important community event. Examples of such events are church gatherings, first birthdays
or a visit from the President or a Senator.
At other times C. will teach the children of the village the virtues of the bible and the
church, one of C.´s duties as a minister’s wife. She additionally spends time as a part of the
church’s women´s group, and whereas K. might be more exclusively engaged in matters of
the church, it is very clear that K. and C. function as a team. The church operates with men´s
and women´s groups, in addition to the larger communal church gatherings and gatherings
for youth, and as the former two groups operate in terms of gender it becomes apparent
that the local church did not require a minister (K.), so much as it requires a ministerial
family (K. and C.). Arno is organized around family, and one might go as far as to say that
persons are in virtue of their family. It makes perfect sense then, that the ministerial post in
practice is held by a family, rather than any person singular.
Dinner is served between five and eight PM, consists of the same ingredients as the
days previous meals, some reheated and some freshly cooked, and marks the end of most of
the day’s chores (copra production, washing clothes and so on). Where some people take
some time off to rest, chat, drink coffee and in other ways just relax, the night also offers
good conditions for certain types of fishing. Some fishermen are gathering on a nearby weto,
land tract, exchanging words, sipping coffee, and preparing for the nights efforts. The fishing
gear is made ready, and the strategies for tonight’s fishing excursion is laid down. While
many types of fishing is carried out during day-time, the night offers the best opportunities
for spearfishing and fishing lobster; and both activities provide meats that are contributing
to the everyday diet in a large way, now more than ever, and constitutes the other half of
the explanation as to why people remain on the outer islands, besides copra production and
its connection to the local stores.
The immediate and less immediate effects of the 3 March flood have touched the
people of RMI in a quite significant way. While the predominant focus of this thesis lies with
Rearlaplap, the effects of flooding in Majuro are no less significant for those affected by it;
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and while this thesis predominantly concerns itself with the dangers posed on rural
subsistence practices by climate change related events, the difficulty of sustaining a large
city such as Majuro within the constraints of an atoll environment – not to mention an
environment that is subjected to increasingly impactful extreme weather events – is hardly a
joking matter. The interplay between local subsistence practices and a flow of global market
goods, where the latter relies upon a monetary economy, has created a double dependency
in which both have to be accessible to maintain the aspired quality of life. Harvesting
(geographically) local resources through subsistence practice relies, in part, on the utilization
of tools that come from a global market; spearfishing is for instance carried out by using
carbon fibre spears25. The possibilities offered by global market goods do on the other hand
rely upon a monetary economy which the majority of people do not have sufficient access
to. This means that the general population (in some partial degree) has to rely upon local
subsistence practices, in order to avoid straining their limited monetary economy. While the
balance between subsistence practices and the global market differs between Majuro and
Rearlaplap – with the latter leaning towards local subsistence whereas the former leans
towards the market – both locations exist somewhere between monetary and non-monetary
economies; and this relationship has to be negotiated (or navigated) to prepare against
extreme weather events, and to rebuild following the effects of extreme weather events on
the local population.
25
See Chapter 4 for more information.
83
84
IV: Anthropogenic Subsistence under
Siege
This chapter approaches the “involution” of water, vegetation, and people as it presents
itself in Rearlaplap; and the three key categories will need to be dismantled in the name of
the reinterpreted cyborg model introduced in Chapter 1. The term “involution” stems from
Geertz usage of “agricultural involution” (1963: 79-82), and should in the context of this
thesis be understood as the internally-directed evolution of an agricultural field (also called
progressive complication). This definition entails the maximization of the utility of a confined
space such as an atoll, so that it supports a larger population of people than otherwise
possible (without expanding outwards). While the “involution” of resources on a limited
acreage of land in Rearlaplap offers certain benefits, and indeed provides a basis for life that
would otherwise be absent, the same connections that make this “involution” fruitful makes
for aggregated effects of loss in the event of an extreme storm surge. By dismantling the line
that divides water and vegetation from people, we can appreciate the physicality of climate
change related events as they project onto the human. As indicated by the breadfruit
example, it follows that the loss of certain plants and trees will carry symbolic value, as they
too are part of the larger social body; the cyborg. However, prior to approaching any of the
above I will look at the spatial arrangement of atolls; and this is done to better appreciate
the anthropogenic elements that are so crucial for the cyborgian dynamic outlined in
Chapter 1.
Engineered Environments, and the Harsh Conditions of
Atolls
The terrestrial vascular flora of the Marshall Islands is composed of a very
limited number of indigenous species, and dominated by exotic introduced
species […] Of an estimated present total of over 500 species […] only about
80 (16%) are possibly indigenous somewhere in the Marshall Islands […]
Depending on their size, location and climate, most individual atolls will only
have between 20 and 60 of these species. The only known endemic species of
the Marshall Islands are two grasses Lepturus gasparrincensis and
Lepturopetium marshallensis, both of which have no known Marshallese
name (NBT 2000 [see my references]). Almost all the other indigenous species
are ubiquitous, easily-dispersed coastal species, which are found in coastal
areas on most other Pacific Islands. This is an indication of the lack of habitat
diversity on atolls compared with larger high islands, and the harsh conditions
and difficulty of long-term survival in the atoll environment. – Thaman
(2006:43-44).
Life on the tropical atolls depend on people’s ability to use the limited available plants in a
myriad of ways. The advantages of anthropogenic forest systems are not only given in terms
of increased biodiversity (versus not having such systems), but also in terms of protection
against sea-spray and waves, against the erosion of the soil, functioning as wind-brakes,
shade, and so on (Thaman, 2000: 3). The agroforest is not only a human creation, but a
technological adaptation towards a harsh, and in many ways limiting climate, without which
human life would not be possible. In order to grasp what the 3 March flood meant for the
people of Rearlaplap, and how it impacted them, we have to understand the relationship
between the people and the atoll.
If the people of Rearlaplap are seen through the optic of the cyborg, the agroforest is
a metaphorical machine in Haraway’s sense of the word. Approaching atolls, or atoll
societies, diachronically means recognizing the historical buildup of the relationship between
humans and the atolls – and what the atolls were prior to the establishment of this relation
between atoll and atoll society. Atolls that have not become a part of long term human
interaction stand close to barren, with such limited vegetation that they resemble less the
86
oasis in the stormy sea than a thin strip of desolation. Even after an unimaginable time of
human modification of the atolls – around two thousand years of the Anthropocene26 – the
atolls of RMI remain mostly harsh and only somewhat lush. A continuous chain of
generations – sometimes working together and other times at war with each other – have
ensured an “involution” of plants, and ‘systems’ of plants and vegetation, that in turn have
ensured a greater diversity and volume of vital resources than would otherwise be possible;
without human design. The harsh conditions of atolls do however mean that the vital
resources are so limited (even with the aforementioned boost in diversity and productivity)
that the resources have to be utilized in resourceful ways – using close to every plant for
many different purposes, and leaving no part unused – to ensure the survival of the
associated atoll society. The diversity of vital resources is not a surplus per se, and does
instead constitute a bare minimum that has to be utilized to the fullest for any large (or
decently sized) social group or constellation to get by. The relationship between atoll society
and the atolls does as such go both ways; with the anthropogenic elements creating a
greater biodiversity on the atolls, in turn allowing for a greater population which again are
best served by looking after the biodiversity and implementing their own modifications. The
‘engineering’ of the atolls by their people has not only allowed for greater biodiversity
through the introduction of plants from throughout Oceania, and alterations to the
topography of the islands (of the atolls) in ways which allowed the introduced plants to
grow, but also allowed new generations (of people) to spring forth from the ground; (as the
increased biodiversity provided them everything but their DNA) by providing the nutrition
that in turn would allow them to grow (through food); not only as bodies, but as a social
body. The specific constellations of plants also provides shelter for the social bodies, and
serves as extensions of the social en masse (via actions) as much as the bodies can be
conceived as continuations of the atolls.
There exists a deeply rooted conceptualization, or cosmology, within Marshallese
culture in which people are considered to come from the land (the atoll) by virtue of their
matrilineage. Ancestors are buried in the land, and this has cemented the relation (of
belonging) between certain families and certain atolls. This relationship (or convergence)
between people and their surroundings – or what we westerners rather conspicuously call
26
Meaning purposeful and monumental modification of environment, hallmarks of the Anthropocene epoch,
rather than the epoch as such.
87
nature, and oftentimes conceptualize as separate from ourselves (or the human) – is called
Bwirej and resembles the Pauva of the Marovo lagoon, or the Fijian Vanua. This is an umwelt
of sorts, within which there is no nature:culture distinction or a distinction between the
human and nature. In that regard the landscape or topography of RMI’s atolls lives on
somewhere between a machine (or several machines) and a machine relic. People are
adopting new habits, and one has to wonder – as some of the people I talked to did –
whether or not the people have increasingly abandoned practices that are associated with,
and maintains, the biodiversity of their atolls in favour for adopting other ways of life.
When approaching the synergism of various ‘technologies’ or ‘machines’ within the
atoll that provides the people with their basis for life, the relationship between various
constellations of plants (as brought about by anthropogenic action) becomes important.
While most people do not classify (or term) these constellations of plants and vegetation as
ecosystems per se, everyone I encountered had knowledge on how certain plants only could
be found in certain places; that only a few plants can survive by the ocean side or in brackish
water, or during a drought; or what that survived where; these are the facts of everyday life.
Thaman (2006: 44-45) is helpful in that he identifies eight of these constellations as “main
natural terrestrial ecosystems or vegetation types” in a relatively clear cut way; in turn
making it easier to discuss the relationship between the various constellations (of
plants/vegetation). The eight ecosystems or vegetation types are according to Thaman
(2006: 44-45) made up of ´inland forest´, ´coastal shoreline or littoral vegetation´,
´mangroves, coastal wetlands and swamps´, ´coconut-dominated agroforest and scrubland´,
´excavated taro pits´, ´household and urban gardens´, ´intensive vegetable gardens´, and
´ruderal vegetation´.
In terms of the synergy between the eight systems in Rearlaplap the ‘coastal
shoreline or littoral vegetation’ is the first one I will address. With vegetation heavily
influenced by salt spray, storm surges, and saltwater incursion (Thaman, 2006: 45-46), the
majority of the ecosystem’s associated plants are salt tolerant. These salt resistant plants
circle the entire ocean side in a dense belt of vegetation that only occasionally is disturbed
by structures or clearings. In a sense the belt acts as a wall that protects other plants from
the ocean. The ‘coastal shoreline and littoral vegetation’ acts as a protector for the other
ecosystems, and for people, by acting as windbreaks that prevent salt spray and strong
88
winds from penetrating further ‘inland’; where the frailer plants (with regards to salt
tolerance) are found. It is somewhat telling that the large majority of Rearlaplap’s villages
are located around the (usually) calmer lagoon side, and not the ocean side.
Further inland, protected from salt spray by the ‘coastal shoreline or littoral
vegetation’, one finds occasional stretches of ‘inland forest’; with a dense canopy and a
tangled undergrowth in which free-ranging domestic pigs tend to stay when they are not
being fed, or being prepared for slaughter. The ocean-side vegetation does however not
shelter the islands (of the atoll) from floods, and certainly not an extreme storm surge that
strikes at the atoll from the lagoon, which in turn meant that many pigs drowned during the
3 March flood. The pigs are as much a part of the ‘inland forest’ as the vegetation, and the
loss of this precious (and demanding to produce) meat was lamented by many of my
informants.
The most dominating or widespread vegetation type in Rearlaplap is the ‘coconutdominated agroforest and scrubland’ – something that corresponds well with Thaman’s
findings in Majuro (2006: 48) – which figures prominently in the copra related economy that
one finds on so many inhabited Oceanian islands and atolls. Rearlaplap’s vegetation is in this
regard quite comparable to most inhabited Oceanian atolls. While coconut trees are rather
hardy and salt resistant, protection from salt spray and waves allows other less hardy plants
to grow as well, and this is the hallmark of multipurpose agroforestry; namely that certain
plants and trees are effectively grown – both in terms of space and growth conditions – via
the “involution” of space to provide for as many needs as possible. The overbearing
prevalence of ‘coconut-dominated agroforest…’ is of course the result of farming practices
with relation to the production of copra at a relatively large scale, at a time when copra was
more profitable; such as during colonial times when there was a rapid growth and expansion
of coconut plantations in the Marshalls (see Chapter 2).
By the lagoon-side villages one finds the ‘household and urban gardens’ ecosystem.
While the ‘urban’ aspect is of little significance to us, the category includes household
gardens, which are both significant and present (in some form or another) in Rearlaplap.
These gardens consist of various food plants (or trees), species with medicinal utility, and
plants or trees of ornamental value. The ecosystem does in short contain those plants that
people use frequently enough, or find useful enough, to want close by. In Rearlaplap the
89
‘excavated taro pits’ ecosystem tends to fall within the domain of household gardens, and
while Thaman describes this “unique and specialized ecosystem” (2006: 50) as one that has
been largely abandoned in Majuro, this is not the case in Rearlaplap. The production of taro
– in this case Wõt (Alocasia macrorrhiza) – has for the most part been abandoned, and the
taro pits are instead used for the cultivation of bananas (Musa cultivars), and various root
vegetables (potato variations). In other words, even though the production of taro variations
has become less important in Rearlaplap, the production capabilities of the unique
‘excavated taro pits’ are still important for everyday life. However, like so many of the other
ecosystems the ‘excavated taro pits’ are only beneficial in so far as they are located away
from salt spray and inundation/storm surge areas.
In terms of synergy the ecosystems of Rearlaplap rely on “involution” by way of
multipurpose agroforestry, and by way of the complementary placement of constellations of
plants and vegetation (ecosystems); complementary being understood as the historical
creation of a strategic topography within which the strengths of one system (for instance the
‘coastal shoreline or littoral vegetation’ ecosystem) offsets the weakness of another system
(for instance the ‘excavated taro pits’ ecosystem, by providing shelter from salt spray) so
that both systems attain beneficial conditions for growth. A key point is that these particular
constellations (of plants and vegetation) are the results of anthropogenic interaction; the
efforts of people to adapt the atoll to themselves as much as they adapted themselves to
the atoll, in a relational way.
Vegetation and Life
Throughout the period of fieldwork several conversations took place on the subject matter
of plants, and the importance and use thereof. This information has among other things
culminated in two tables. The larger and less specific table is omitted from this thesis, while
Table 1 is included below. Table 1 contains 29 plants according to Marshallese taxonomy,
sorted by presumed scientific names27, and lists information as to the utility of the plants,
the plants’ general condition, and whether or not they have been deemed ´most important´
according to informants. A state of stoic anxiety had spread amongst those who were
27
Derived from Taafaki, Fowler & Thaman (2006), and Vander Velde (2012), and Plants and Environments of
the Marshall Islands (2015).
90
affected by the 3 March flood, and even those who were not directly affected had begun
vocally reflecting upon the feasibility of a continued existence in RMI. It is therefore
important to point out that the majority of the information contained within Table 1 was
generated following the flood, and that the majority of the people I talked with had
corresponding moods (of the aforementioned stoic anxiety). Both tables draw on material
from several map drawings made in collaboration with-, or entirely by-, informants, as well
as interview situations. The maps were made with the expressed intention of listing the
most important things present on the informants land tract, however considered. The
interview material broached the topic of plants in a more specific sense, and allowed
informants to list plants without regard to prioritizing their importance.
I often brought “Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands: The Women, The
Plants, The Treatments” (Taafaki, Fowler & Thaman, 2006) along for interview sessions, and
leafed through its pages with the people I interviewed, in order to allow the book to serve as
a talking point. The book features photographs of a great deal of (and possibly all of) the
plants and vegetation of the Marshall Islands, complete with Marshallese and scientific\
names. Additionally the combination of pictures and Marshallese names did allow me a
degree of certainty that we were indeed conversing about the same plant(s), and that I could
spell their names. On a few occasions people would correct the book; if the person(s) for
instance used a different name for a plant, or used a different taxonomy than that of the
Ratak Chain dialect of the Marshallese language. I oftentimes asked people to draw maps of
their immediate surroundings; emphasizing whatever they felt was important to them (be it
housing, plants and the reef, or other things entirely), and I made a few maps myself. It
always astounded me how people would present clear-cut representations of what
mattered within the landscape; only emphasizing a few objects of importance; almost (but
not quite) to the point of not seeing the forest for the trees; whereas I ended up with overly
detailed and rather cluttered representations with no emphasis in particular to one plant or
the other.
91
Table 1. The Importance, Vulnerability, and Utility of 29 Marshallese Plants According to Informants,
and Sorted by Presumed Scientific Name with Original Marshallese Taxonomy Attached
Presumed Scientific Marshallese
Name
Name
Deemed 'Most Vulnerability
Important' by
Informants
Utility According to Informants
Alocasia macrorrhiza
Wõt
Artocarpus altilis, A.
mariannensis,
A.
altilis
x
A.
Mariannensis
Carica papaya
Mã
Yes
Keinabbu (Ralik),
Keinapu (Ratak)
Yes
Catharanthus roseus
Raan ñan raan
Citrus aurantifolia
Laim
Yes
Cocos nucifera
Ni
Yes
Cordia subcordata
Kõno
Medicine - to treat fish poisoning
Crinum asiaticum
Kiõb (Ralik), Kieb
(Ratak)
Utilomar
Medicine - to treat pain/swelling
Guettarda speciosa
Hedyotis biflora
Hernandia
nymphaeifolia
Laportea ruderalis
Morinda citrifolia
Musa cultivars
Most are dead as a
result of flood
Abundant,
with
major damage from
flood
Food - unspecified
Dead as a result of
flood
Food, Handicrafts - bleaching strips of Cocos
nucifera leaf
Abundant prior to
flood. None left
Dead following flood
Severely
affected
following flood, all
Kilange
ADB
nurseries destroyed
following flood
Food - adds taste to food and drink, Food chemically cooks raw fish
Cash – production of copra, Construction – roof
made from leafs, Construction – wood,
Construction – unspecified, Environment –
protection against wind, Food – drinking, Food
– unspecified, Handicrafts – mats from leafs,
Handicrafts – unspecified, Medicine –
unspecified
Medicine - unspecified
Kinoj
(Ralik)
Kinwõj (Ratak)
Piñpiñ
Disappearing.
much left
Neen kõtkõt
Abundant prior 1989.
Few left
Nin (Ralik), Nen
(Ratak)
Keeprañ, Pinana
Construction - outrigger canoes, Food unspecified, Medicinal use - unspecified
Not
Medicine - unspecified
Medicine - unspecified
Medicine - unspecified
Yes
Dead following flood
Ocimum basilicum, O.
tenuiflorum
Katriiñ
Pandanus tectorius
(P. odoratissimus)
Bõb
Phyllanthus amarus
Jiljino Awa
Medicine - to treat diabetes
Phymatosorus
Kino
Medicine - unspecified
Yes
Abundant in 1989.
Presumed extinct by
2007
Severely affected - no
longer produces fruit
Food – unspecified, Medicine – drink to treat
bad stomach, Medicine – to treat swelling,
Medicine – unspecified
92
Construction – houses, Food – unspecified,
Handicrafts – amimano, Handicrafts – Jaki,
Handicrafts – mats from leafs, Medicine –
unspecified
grossus
Plumeria botura, P.
rubra
Polyscias scutellaria
Meria
Medicine - unspecified
Wutcup
Medicine - unspecified
Premna serratifolia
Kaar
Scaevola taccada
Kõnnat
(Ralik),
Konat (Ratak)
Kalañe
(Ralik),
Kõlañe (Ratak)
Kotõl
(Ralik),
Kotel (Ratak)
Ujoj en kijenbao
(Ralik), Ujoj in
kakkumkum
(Ratak)
Kiden
(Ratak),
Kidren (Ralik)
Atat
Suriana maritima
Terminalia catappa
Thuarea involuta
Tournefortia
argentea
Triumfetta
procumbens
Vigna marina
Cucurbita pepo
Markinenjojo
Pumkin
Yes
Medicine - drink to treat general injury,
Medicine - to treat stress, Medicine unspecified
Environment - protection against wind,
Medicine - unspecified
Previously abundant.
Now rare
Not many left
Disappearing
Medicine - unspecified
Environment - protection
Medicine - unspecified
Medicine - unspecified
Yes
Dead as a result of
flood
93
Medicine - unspecified
Food - unspecified
against
wind,
In order to gauge the impact of the 3 March flood on the social body we have to approach
the plants that people depend upon, and I will do so by approaching Table 1. The 29 plants
listed above will serve my purposes as a cross section (of sorts), demonstrating some of the
(multiple) ways in which Rearlaplap’s plants constitute or make up parts of the body at the
societal level, and how the social body (or the cyborg) is impacted by the effects of the flood
on certain plants. In short, I am looking at how the effects of the flood are projected onto
the body at the level of the community or group, or the other way around; how the plants
that make up part of the cyborg body are impacted by the flood, and what happens when
the ‘plant’ component (technology/machine) of the cyborg becomes so severely strained.
Nine of the 29 listed plants are dead or severely impacted following the flood, with
an additional six plants presumed to be extinct or otherwise conspicuously absent; allegedly
as a result of changing weather (the temperature of seasons, as well as the level of rainfall),
floods, or erosion. The affected plants are with few exceptions used for a myriad of different
purposes ranging from food and medicine, to the construction of houses and canoes, and for
protecting both land and biodiversity against the wind and salt spray. Seven out of the eight
plants that the people I talk to consider to be ‘most important’ are severely affected by the
flood, or are diminished or presumed to be extinct for other reasons; for instance due to
warmer seasons, as is the case with the disappearance of Makmõk28, the Polynesian
Arrowroot (Tacca leontopetaloides). The majority of people that look at the provided
pictures note how one or more of the plants that they cherished during their childhood (for
instance used to resemble/mimic the claws of a witch during playful interaction), or
otherwise recalled from the past, now have all but disappeared. Most people I approach
have no qualms about informing me that this or that plant has died during or following the
flood, and they are more than willing to show me the destruction; or at times the earie
absence of vegetation that emphasized that what once had been is no more.
Seven of the eight plants deemed ‘most important’ matter in part because they
provide food, with one notable exception (Kaar, or Premna serratiflora) that is considered
important solely for medicine; whereas four of the eight plants are cherished for medicinal
28
The Polynesian Arrowroot is not present in Table 1. The plant is generally considered to no longer grow in
Rearlaplap. According to local sentiment this is due to increasingly warm (year round) weather, during the
recent years, or decade, and up until today. Repeated attempts to replant the arrowroot in Arno have failed,
according to my informants.
94
purposes in addition to their utility in the Marshallese kitchen. The Mã (Artocarpus altilis, A.
mariannensis, A. altilis x A. Mariannensis) – or breadfruit – falls under this category, and with
major damaged following the flood. All of the species of breadfruit in season are dead
(having dropped all leafs and fruits to the ground) as a direct consequence of the flood,
whereas the trees not in season survive well enough, but will not produce for another six
months. Three of the eight are good for construction, one for environmental control, three
for the production of handicrafts, and one as a cash crop. In other words: while no great
diversity of plants and vegetation can survive on an atoll, the people who live there have –
for generations – made sure to cultivate a rich “involution” of this limited biodiversity. The
plants are utilized in a myriad of interconnected ways, and virtually all of the plants hold
within them the potential to be used in more than one field of utility (medicine, food,
construction and crafting, environmental control). That seven of these eight plants are dead,
are severely diminished, or are presumed to be extinct, presents no small disaster for the
people of Rearlaplap. These plants provide people with a type of utility that they (the
people) cannot live without. The plants provide nutrition and medicine at such a
fundamental level for human existence, that they (the plants) can be said to embody life
itself; and this is certainly the case when appraised through our previously established
cyborg optic. The existence and state of the local plants and vegetation constitutes a matter
of life and death for Rearlaplap’s population, and makes up a fundamental part of what it
means living on an Oceanian atoll; and consequently what living with climate change means
for the society of people who spend such great parts of their lives on these thin strips of dry
land.
Erosion and medicine
Erosion is according to most informants a serious problem, and fallen coconut trees are
often encountered when walking the ocean-side beach. The possible loss of utility in the
form of plants used for food, medicine, and construction, is considered problematic by most
villagers. In the late afternoon of 16 April, J. begins vocally reminiscing about his younger
days. J. is a Rearlaplap local who spent some time abroad during large parts of the 1990s and
2000s, and he claims noticing a vast difference between the state of the islands prior to his
95
leave, and their state upon and after his return. We are sitting on the ocean side, peering at
the beach and the ocean itself, relaxing as the cool ocean-side breeze takes away some of
the days heat. J. directs my attention towards a spot on the coral beach below us. As he
points he tells me that he used to have a hammock, right there on the coral beach; a beach
that used to be a tree-line.
We are seated on a ledge just beyond the coastal erosion zone, and there is a sheer
drop of two to three meters down to the beach itself. Beyond the 45 degree drop the beach
is flat, and extends for a few meters into a flat coral reef-ledge. The ledge sits above the lowwatermark. At two to three meters up we are at the virtual apex of the atoll. The drop down
from the forest to the beach clearly indicates how large masses of coral -pebbles, -sand, and
topsoil have been carried away by waves. The section of beach J. is pointing towards lies
roughly ten meters away from where we are sitting (in the tree line). J. comments on how
much farther out the beach used to extend, and the following transcript details the
conversation that followed.
J.: “Well it is really surprising [to] me, because I see a lot of difference
compared to the days I was a young kid. I´m talking about more than twenty
years ago, when I was a little boy. And I see a lot of difference after I came
back, as far as the waves eating up the islands. […] There is a lot of damage
[…]. Back in 1991 there was a typhoon named Zelda, as far as I remember, and
you know there were no waves at that time affecting [Rearlaplap]. All there
was were strong winds and heavy rains, and all that, but it didn’t affect [us
with] any waves […].”
Me: ”Nothing like the flooding that happened a month ago?”
J.: ”It´s nothing compared to the flood that happened a month ago. The flood
that we had a month ago was really bad, you know. It really surprised me
because we never have these kinds of floods [here]. That’s what really
surprises me, because [previously] it was only winds. And I’m thinking of the
differences, the changes, as far as climate change [goes].”
96
Me: ”Earlier you said something about, twenty years from now, looking at the
beach. Do you mind going over that again?” [REFERENCING JUST PRIOR TO
THE RECORDING]
J.: “[…] I´m happy to tell [you] about it. [It is] what scared me […]. Twenty
years [have] passed, and it [has] already happened. I see a lot of difference.
I´m scared of, [and am] thinking of what will happen, [within] the next fifteen
or twenty years from now. [The flood] scared me […] because […] I haven’t
seen any waves affecting, or damaging, our place [like in this flood]; as far as
local foods and houses [go]. [The flood was] damaging [to] the roads, as you
saw […], and that’s the big issues that people have to think of […]. That’s really
what I got in my mind and that’s what scares me […]. I´m thinking, what will
happen? What about twenty years from now? What will happen? Because I
know it is happening already, as far as the flood [goes] that happened last
month. [During the last twenty years] we never had no floods or no waves
affecting […] the islands [like this]. [There] is heating up [of] the land […], but
that was like slowly, little by little. But I see the difference on this one. I start
thinking and [I/they] start talking about it. “
Me: ”Considering the difference you see now, how do you think it is going to
affect the Marshallese way of life, here on the island, as time goes by and the
waves become more frequent; as the recent climate report suggested?”
[REFERENCING THE THEN RECENT RADIO BROADCAST BY PRESIDENT LOEAK
ON THE PRELIMINARY IPCC REPORT]
J.: ”[…] That will be a big issue for us Marshallese people. Because, once it
keeps coming, like the waves, […] our plants and foods, the local [plants]
where we get our foods from, they are going to start to fade […] away. The
waves last month damaged a lot of breadfruits, [and] […] the plants we get
our medicines from […]. And those are the main concerns I got in my mind. I
am trying to picture it after twenty years from now. […] There will be no
choice, you know, because if it´s like an ongoing thing […] we don’t have [any]
options in order to keep the waves away from damaging our environment,
and our living things, and the foods that we get out – mainly the foods and
97
medicines. Those are the main concerns […]. It is […] a big issue for us
Marshallese people.”
Me: ”It´s like the hammock that you used to have, out on the beach, that’s no
longer here?”
J.: ”[…] Like I said, when I was a young boy, […] a little boy, I grew up here. I
used to have a hammock by the beach. When I came back […] from the states,
because I [had been] away from Arno for a long [time], […] almost twenty
years, [when I came] back. And I came [and had a look around], […] and I was
like, what is this place? Where [was] the hammock? And [the place] in view of
it? You know I love the sound of the waves and all that, but the thing that
surprises me is the [how the] hammock [disappeared]. That was only ten plus
years ago. That is one thing that people have to think of, and start thinking of,
and can really focus on. If things continue [like this], […] what will we do, or
what can we do, if this is still happening […]? Or what if [these] waves [come]
again, sometime in the near months or so? That is a big big big issue, and
that’s what I’m [THERE IS A PAUSE] I’m scared of that.”
Me: ”And that’s what you were talking about with the people we just went to
see?” [REFERENCING A RECENT HOUSE-TO-HOUSE WALK]
J.: ”[…] When I started [talking to] them about […] the local medicines, [and]
what will happen when the plants are gone, they [said]: ´we don’t know´. […]
And what about the local foods? […] You can tell that the breadfruits are all
dying now. How long [before] they come back for us to get food from [them]?
Some of them [replied]: […] ´we´re thinking [it] is probably [around] five years
from now, and that’s a long time´. And during [that] timeframe, what are you
going to eat without the breadfruit, the bananas, the papayas, [and/or] the
pumpkins? You saw one of the houses that I showed you, my uncle’s house,
[where] everything was washed away by the waves. And now they can do
nothing, they don’t have nothing. Nothing left. Completely [destroyed].”
Me: ”There´s a lot of that too”
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J.: ”Yeah, but they don’t really know a lot about the climate change. They´re
not really understanding how it works, and what´s the cost and effect of it […].
Now they started realizing that it´s true, because once the plants go away
and, let’s say, something happens to a close relative, or something, what can
we do? Just watch them dying? Because we cannot do nothing, because
[there is] no more plants to get their medicines from. […] You said something
about the houses that we built. And […] that too, [is] part of the culture, right?
[…] The traditional houses that we build […] We´ve got limited materials […],
and we got them from plants too, as far as the lumber, the woods, and the
coconut leaves that we use to weave the roofing [go]. You’ve seen a lot of
coconut trees falling [down], [their] leaves are falling, and they are all falling
now. [It] is from the waves. They started realizing that. And then […] where
are we gonna live, without the roofs? Out in the open area? What about the
rain, when the rain comes? There´s no place to cook, and that’s bad […].”
The importance of plants and trees against the onset of erosion, and for medicine, were
similarly expressed by D., a middle-aged man originally from Kiribati, prior to the flood. As a
practitioner of traditional Kiribati medicine, a craft he picked up while traveling around in
Kiribati, D. knew the plants and trees well. The medicinal plants of the Marshall Islands and
those of Kiribati were, he said, largely the same. The treatments in the medicinal traditions
similarly correspond to a large degree. First the conversation broached, in general terms, the
presence and importance of plants and trees whose roots bind the atolls together, slowing
down erosion. This was expressed without much differentiation between specific species of
plants and trees, outside the fact that these plants and trees were saltwater resistant. As far
as the sentiment went the roots of the plants/trees worked like tethers, functioning by
physically grasping the soil and the coral rock, thus denying the ground to break apart and
flush into the sea. This sentiment is to the best of my knowledge shared among all my
informants, and seems to conceptually encompass plants and trees as a whole, and as what
holds the literal foundation for life on the atolls in place. The efficacy of medicinal plants also
became a theme as D. elaborated that a particular plant, Jiljino Awa (Phyllanthus amarus),
could be prepared in such a manner that it would cure uterine and prostate cancer. The
plant could furthermore be consumed daily against the effects of diabetes, though this was
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done alongside western diabetes medicine. D. was a diabetic, and found the consumption of
the plant most useful, and so did many of his fellow villagers who he extended his services
to, according to himself.
It is important to note that D.´s expressions on the importance of plants took place
prior to the 3 March flood, and that the concerns expressed by J. on 16 April with regards to
long-term survivability therefore were less present. Keeping that in mind one sees that the
general concerns expressed by J., and the information supplied by D., and other informants,
corresponds well in that plants generally are taken to bind the Atoll together, and
furthermore presents an important measure with regards to medicinal difficulties and
associated treatments. In J´s case one even finds an increased awareness (following the 3
March flood) with regards to the possible future impacts of climate change on life in the
Marshall Islands. The flood event acts as a lens through which current events (and even
certain events from the past) are (re)interpreted, and through which the future becomes
even more unstable or uncertain.
Water and Life
While the availability of water as a resource figures as important throughout the world, the
limited availability of water on the atolls and small islands of Oceania is both exceptional and
critical. Despite there being no shortage of water in the great Pacific Ocean, freshwater of
potable quality can be scarce. On the atolls one finds a precarious interplay between
freshwater lenses (essentially semi-stratified layers of fresh and salt water, separated by
convergence zones) and the surrounding sea; wherein tidal fluctuations impact the vertical
placement of the freshwater lens, and where storm-surge overwash (such as the 3 March
flood) causes an excessive increase in the salinity levels of the freshwater lenses, pushes a
freshwater lens downwards (underneath the salty water of the storm-surge), or temporarily
mixes the different aquifers (floating layers of water with a variance of salinity levels) so that
the convergence zones between the levels increase drastically29. All Oceanian atolls (and
smaller islands) that rely on freshwater lenses share a common denominator; that
29
For more information on the specifics of the impact storm-surge overwash on atoll freshwater lenses, see
Terry & Falkland (2009). For information on freshwater lens dynamics on small Pacific Islands, see White &
Falkland (2009).
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freshwater lenses constitute an incredibly precarious premise for life on an island (or chains
of islands) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Water can take many forms and will have different characteristics with regards to its
quality (level of salinity and pollution), and this is no different for Rearlaplap. In addition to
the freshwater lenses – which ideally are of a potable quality, but occasionally will be
brackish (such as during post-flood conditions, and during drought) – potable water is made
available via water catchments, or (less commonly) through purchases at the local village
store. Rainwater (aebõj, dãnnin aebõj, or dãnnin wõt) provides an obvious source of
freshwater (mãmet30) for plants, and provides colder weather during rainfall. Brackish water
(kõlaebar) can be found by certain coastal depressions – or on smaller islands that are
partially submerged during high tide – as part of the ‘mangroves, coastal wetlands and
swamps’ ecosystem, whereas seawater (lojet, or dãnnin lojet31) surrounds all of the islands,
and props up the freshwater lenses (aquifer). All of the different types of water serve
different purposes in Rearlaplap, and the dynamic between the different types of water and
their sources became altered as a result of the 3 March flood.
The availability of plants – with the associated medicinal, nutritional, and material
benefits – all rely upon the availability of freshwater in one form or another. Whereas
rainfall supplies coconut palms (and other forms of vegetation) with much needed H2O as
soon as it hits the ground (prior to entering the freshwater lens that lies within the atoll), by
being absorbed by root systems on its way down through the ground, the freshwater lens
provides the vegetation with a (relatively) steady source of freshwater both prior, during and
after rainfall. The vegetation that people rely on would not be able to survive without the
freshwater lenses, especially during periods of drought (id est outside of the rainy season),
and Rearlaplap’s people would (logically) go thirsty and would eventually be forced to move.
Water supplies life for the social body in both direct and indirect ways; and where the
anthropogenic people (of Rearlaplap) are provided life by the virtue of their plants, this
would not be possible in the absence of the right kind of water. The topographic
reorganization and introduction of plants and vegetation – as previously referred to – is
30
31
Mãmet does also translate to “sweet”.
Dãnnin refers to “fluid”, whereas lojet translates to “ocean” or “sea”.
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important almost exclusively in so far as it is a rearrangement of the relationship between
certain types of plants and certain types of water.
At the End of the Rainy Season
As the rainy season approaches its end, and rainstorms become less and less frequent, a
group of relatives are gathering on one of their weto (land tracts) to dig a new well.
Rationing freshwater is becoming increasingly important, as the volume of water contained
within the largest water catchment on the land tract is dropping to dangerous levels. The
father of the associated household taps the side of the catchment with his knuckles, in order
to determine the water level inside the plastic tank, and the tank sounds out in a hollow
echo. The father taps the tank once more, this time further down at around 2/7 of the
containers height, and a dull sound indicates that there is still some water inside the tank.
When the father taps the tank for the third time, just above the 2/7 mark, another echo
indicates that the remaining 5/7 are empty, meaning that the drinkable freshwater reserve is
at a precarious low.
While another catchment can be found next to the largest building on the land tract,
it is made from concrete; which means that the water it contains is polluted by
microorganisms that favour the dark, the dampness, and the texture inside the tank. The
polluted water it contains is not drinkable, and is rather used for personal hygiene such as
for showering, washing clothes, and cooling off on warm days. The plastic water
catchment32, that currently contains 2/7 of its capacity in drinkable freshwater, now has to
be used for specific purposes that only can be provided by potable water; such as providing
drinking water, water for cooking certain foods, and providing for specific hygienic needs
such as washing one’s face or brushing one’s teeth (uses for which polluted water would not
be appropriate); in contrast to the rainy season, when water is used more freely. I am told
that wells used to provide potable water prior to the 3 March flood, but this is no longer the
case. Whatever wells were standing at the time of the flood were filled with ocean water
and became poisoned, and all newly dug wells provide brackish water as a result of saltwater
inundation. In the absence of frequent rain the freshwater lens – on which all the wells rely –
32
The container, or catchment, consists of a type of plastic known as virgin polyethylene. The virgin prefix
implies that the sheets of polyethylene (plastic) have been made using new pellets, which produce fewer
impurities in the structure of the plastic than recycled pellets. This ensures a certain quality of water inside the
container.
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is expected to shrink as the remaining plants and vegetation absorb its water in-between
rainfall. During the coming weeks the family uses the new well, and the polluted catchment
to maximum effect, and the unpolluted tank slowly refills to about ½ of its full capacity as a
result of frugal consumption and infrequent rainfall; a feature that marks the dry season of
the southern Marshall Islands. The few types of water that still can be found in abundance
are used in a manner that mitigates the now severely diminished freshwater.
This shift is not only made visible with regards to the direct management of water
reserves, but also when it comes to the indirect management of water related resources
such as food crops (and other plants) and fish. In the absence of frequent rainfall, and given
the poor quality of the freshwater lens, only a few food crops remain alive. With the
disappearance of freshwater reliant food crops, the majority of Rearlaplap's affected
population now has to rely on store-bought goods such as rice, flour, and canned meats to
cover their daily intake of food. For the fishermen of Rearlaplap this means that the ocean
and lagoon becomes even more important, as it now provides the only steady source of food
“on-island”. Just like the majority of water-related needs have been shifted towards polluted
and brackish water – in turn conserving freshwater for where it is most precious – so too
does the absence of freshwater (to provide for food crops) result in a shift towards saltwater
and the sea as a primary provider of food. Besides a few broken corals – another result of
the 3 March waves – and some bleaching, the reefs are in good condition; and this provides
for good fishing opportunities. In fact, fishing provides one last example of the “involution”
of various types of plants, water, and people within the cyborg hybrid, as previously
discussed in Chapter 1 and the current chapter.
Lojet as Hunting Ground
The moon fills up large portions of the sky, bathing Rearlaplap and its ocean (lojet) in a pale
light. We are moving in a group of five people, and are brandishing spears of yellow and
black carbon-fibre shafts, topped with three metal prongs, and at the bottom a thick black
rubber band loop. In our spare hands we carry small, 15 centimetre long, flare green diving
flashlights. The battery casing and the light bulb (diode) are held together by a set of hinges
with a tight rubber seal between the separate components. We all have bands fastened to
the flashlights and tightened around our wrists so that the lights always stay close at hand.
We also carry diving mask of the navy variety; that is one large open window with dark
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plastic surrounding it (to better fit the face of the user) and black rubber-bands strapped
between two metal loops, so that the masks can be properly tightened around the face.
Black plastic snorkels hang off one side of the masks. One man carries a pair of black navy
flippers. At the front of the procession the leader of the expedition turns his flashlight on so
that we can see where we are going. He carries a light brown burlap bag over one shoulder.
On our final pause en route to the ocean side we regroup around the familiar outline
of a pandanus tree. As we pause my informants break off a few of the tree’s hanging roots,
approximately one root per head. One group member extends his hand in my direction
presenting an around 10 centimetre long and 2 centimetre wide sand coloured root with a
green tinge. I decline his offer; I had previously observed informants applying similar roots
against the insides and outsides of their masks prior to diving, and as such I had already
produced a root of my own. Soon we are upon smooth coral rocks as the forest gives way to
the ocean and the waves as they break upon the reef. A few Konat (Scaevola taccada) marks
the border between the forest and the beach, between salt protectors and other plants and
trees. Soon the smooth white rocks, now a skeletal grey in the feint moonlight that reflects
off the mighty Pacific Ocean – booming and full of white noise – gives way to sharp corals.
We ready ourselves for the coming efforts in fishing and turn on our flashlights one by one,
walk shin deep into the ocean, and start cleaning our diving-masks in the water. We smash
the Bõb against the glass of the diving masks. As the roots turn into mush a blank, thick and
oily substance is produced. The roots are then used as painting brushes of sorts, distributing
the clear fluid on all the glass as well as the other surfaces of the masks.
After cleaning the masks once more in the water we walk towards the edge of the
reef-ledge, against the pounding waves. Several hours are spent in the water – spearing fish
along the flat-top reef, from 11pm to around 2am – and our masks do not fog up once. As
the group comes together with the plant (local), their fishing gear (translocal/commercial
market), and the warm Pacific Ocean they become freediving underwater hunters who
provide food for the lager associated social body (family/group/extended); so that it (the
society) does not have to go hungry. At the end of the night we divide the fish, share some
coffee, and head home to sleep. Even cyborgs need sleep.
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“Involution” and Aggregated Effects
The particulars of the “involution” between people, types of water, and vegetation on an
atoll entails an aggregation of loss (or rapid change) in the face of climate-change-related
events such as the 3 March flood. Life depends upon a series of practices in which the social
organization exists as a hybrid between social relation, vegetation and certain uses of water
by the extent of which the plants and the water becomes social relations enabling the
continued existence of people on the atoll. This hybrid allows for a harsh existence in what
would otherwise have been an impossibly constrained basis for any decently sized social
group. However, surpassing these constraints requires efficient “involution” of the
constrained or limited space and resources at disposal in Rearlaplap. It follows that any
environmental (or other) impact that targets or affects one of the “involutions” components
bleeds over into other aspects of what can best be described as a maximizing long term
adaptation of land and sea. As the availability of various types of water became impacted by
the 3 March flood, so too did the limited available vegetation become severely diminished,
and so too did the long term strategies for dry season related water management become
affected. The related shortages should be seen as a direct impact on the population and
their wellbeing by the associated crisis of food shortage, water shortage, shortage of
medicine and materials, and so on. At the core of things these impacts strike at the social
body and the biological body, as projections of climate change; something that entails that
climate change is not something that happens to the land or the sea, but rather something
that affects the relation between people, land and sea – an obvious point, and on that has to
be reaffirmed again and again.
The Symbolic Aspect
The loss of breadfruit is lamented in part because of the importance of breadfruit related
foodstuffs in the Marshallese kitchen. However, even those lucky few families that somehow
manage to produce some sort of surplus of food in the post-flood landscape – by shifting
resource usage to favour what is available – lament the absence of what for many is the
number one food; a title the breadfruit shares with hard-to-produce pork. The sadness
expressed by all informants when discussing the dead breadfruit trees is not “simply” a
matter of food shortage or surplus, but rather a symbolic matter in which the breadfruit
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figures as important because of an established link to most Marshallese social gatherings
(such as the keemem); which without breadfruit is missing an important emotional
component, in addition to the absence experienced with regards to nutrition. The breadfruit,
then, becomes a symbol for aspects of Marshallese life that are considered important, and
that now are under threat by the intensification of weather; the part of Marshallese culture
that literally stands rooted in the ground of the atolls, and that at the present state (postflood) appears to struggle to endure; the part of Marshallese culture that people risk leaving
behind if they decide to move abroad. In as sense, the breadfruit is the canary’s canary in
the coalmine; where RMI (and other Pacific nations that struggle with sea level rise) figures
as the canary in the coalmine from a global perspective, the breadfruit figures as the
canary’s canary and the indicator’s indication. That being said, the breadfruit is only one
representative of a larger category of “traditional” subsistence related foods whose
practices are less present in the present than in the past; and that relate to local food
security.
One Arno Senator supplies the following comment during and emergency relief
excursion to Arno (specifically Malel and Rearlaplap) on 31 March: “…we have no food
security here. When the flood hits, that is it. […] Back in the day people used to have
bananas and pandanus. They would prepare it in earth ovens, and then dry it, on coconut
leaves out in the sun, and finally roll it together […] This food was kept in case of
emergencies, and for long journeys in outrigger canoes. It is superman-food.” The senator is
here referring to mokwan – dried pandanus, also referred to as jããnkun in the Ralik Chain
dialect, a dish usually served alongside coconut meat; tasting something akin to liquorice.
According to Ione Heine deBrum, author of Mokwan ak Jããnkun: Dried Pandanus
Paste (2004), mokwan is primarily produced on the Northern Ratak Chains atolls of Ailuk,
Likiep, and Mejit, as well as the Ralik Chain atolls of Ujae, Lae, and Wotho – under the
designation jããnkun (2004: 41). In the northern Ratak Chain atolls mokwan is produced to
conserve food for drought and famine scenarios, whereas the Ralik Chain jããnkun primarily
is produced for long sea voyages in outrigger canoes. On the utility of jããnkun for sailors
deBrum continues: “Sailors have found it particularly useful because it does not have to be
cooked, unlike Bwiro (preserved breadfruit), which cannot be eaten without further
preparation. They can just slice off pieces as they need them. They have even used the
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packages as pillows” (2004: 42). The preservation process consists of cooking the prism-like
sections of pandanus fruit in an um – earth oven until the prisms are considered ready. The
prism-like sections are unearthed, and “are spread on coconut fronds to cool” (2004: 43). A
special tool, wekan or peka, is then used to extract the juice or paste. After a cooking
process the paste is “spread evenly on top of banana leaves [out] in the sun [to dry]” (2004:
44). The paste is then cut, rolled, tightly wrapped in pandanus leaves, and closely tied with
ekkwal – sennit (2004: 44).
The senator refers to mokwan as superman-food, and deBrum elaborates via a Dr.
Lois Engelberg, who in March 2003 conducted a preliminary study on the nutritional value of
certain pandanus varieties. A mokwan package was tested for Beta Carotene values (per 100
grams) alongside the other samples, and the mokwan scored a high 724.1 value; much
higher than other preparations of pandanus, and better than all raw varieties of pandanus
(scoring <232 per 100 grams) with the exception of Lanlin pandanus (901.8 per 100 grams)
(deBrum, 2004: 45-46). Beta Carotene is important, being “…the most important of provitamin A carotenoids”, which in absentia “…causes night blindness and other health
problems, which are common in the Marshall Islands” (deBrum, 2004: 45). The senator is, in
other words, not only commenting upon the value of locally grown food for people’s health,
but also upon how increased consumption of market goods turn people away from the
(time-consuming) production and preparation of traditional foods, and the associated food
crops, in ways damaging to independent local resilience; something he seems to recall as
more present in the past.
The loss of symbolically potent trees and plants such as the breadfruit speaks to
associated threats on Marshallese identity; namely the uprooting of traditional practices or
other practices relating to identity, the (unwilling) abandonment of practices that are deeply
cherished as part of what it means being Marshallese, and the potential threats faced by a
nation whose future might lie beneath the level of the ocean and whose people might have
to live an uprooted existence abroad. Mobility has always figured as important within the
context of Oceania, and this is no different for the Marshalls, but the prospects of mobility
without the possibility for return should be taken seriously. In so far as their identity is
rooted in a place of belonging (geographical setting), a home to which one may ideally
return, the people of Oceania now risk an uprooting of the likes which have not been seen
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since the nuclear test relocations of the past, and at a much grander scale; uprooting
identities beyond a point of no return.
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V: Reflections on the Future Present
Rearlaplap exists somewhere between local practices of subsistence and goods from the
global market, and this placement is confronted and navigated as part of the post-flood
rebuilding process. Where the household provides an analytically useful focus for the
organization of daily life, the houses of the household provide excellent examples of the
physicality of Rearlaplap’s position vis-à-vis both market and more rooted practices of
subsistence. In so far as the process of rebuilding involves re-establishing this position,
household reconstruction will offer some clues as to the constraints and possibilities of this
particular situatedness; and offers an exposition on the social wants of a larger community.
This physicality is crucial if we are to understand what it means being confronted by the
negative possibilities of a rising ocean, and I hold that the absence of this physicality in
discursively focused approaches to climate change is less than ideal. I will therefore
approach Rudiak-Gould’s 2013 book once more, which again will lead me into RMI’s official
rhetoric in approaching climate change (refusing to leave), as well as the sombre prospect of
outmigration. Before doing so I will approach the physicality of Rearlaplap’s situatedness in
more detail.
Ad Hoc Solutions within the Restraints of Material
Consumption
P.’s family weto (land tract) stretches from the lagoon side in the southwest and to the
ocean side in the northeast. Around one seventh of the land tract consists of a greyish white
coral pebble courtyard by the lagoon, around which three houses are scattered. The
remaining six sevenths of the land consist of coconut forest to the northeast, ending in salt
protectors, the ocean-side beach, and the ocean-side reef. The courtyard and the forest are
only divided by the narrow dirt-road, which cuts through the land tract in a southeast to
northwest direction. On the northeast side of the road there are trees and ocean, on the
southwest side one finds the houses and the lagoon.
A tiny mõn kiki (house for sleep) sits adjacent to the dirt-road. The house has been
painted a light blue and yellow now faded by the elements, is square, and consists of
plywood sheet walls, plywood shutters, and a plywood door, as well as gable style roofing
with a corrugated iron roof. The frame of the house sits on a partial concrete foundation,
with one sixth of the floor being pebbles. A latch has been screwed onto the door, and
doorframe of the house. The ridge beam extends beyond the shorter northwest wall,
creating a small sheltered spot, and an improvised lamp post; a piece of electric wire twines
around the ridge beam and connects to a light bulb hanging against the outer wall. The walls
of the house are sagging, and most of the plywood sheets are partially loose, both as a result
of the flood. Right next to the house one finds the ruins of the accompanying toilet and
shower shed, standing there all askew, most of the structure having gone its merry way on
the rising tide. The ceramic toilet has been shifted off its foundation, and the septic tank has
been rendered unusable. The second house, the family mõn kiki (house for sleep), sits just
next to the lagoon. Made to accommodate an entire family, the house is about six times
larger than the first one. Both houses are similar in their construction, both consisting of the
same materials, and the same worn blue and yellow paint, with the exception that the larger
house stands on a pure concrete foundation. The house has sustained severe water damage
during the 3 – 5 March flood, and most of the low level plywood sheet walls have begun to
rot, a result of becoming waterlogged. A few structural beams, as well as large portions of
the wall framing, similarly suffer from being waterlogged. House number three, the family
mõn kuk (cookhouse), is located at the perimeter of the weto (land tract), northwest of the
large mõn kiki (house for sleep). As a result of the flood the house has collapsed in on itself.
The roof has fallen down upon the collapsed structure, seemingly a result of increasing
structural weakness under the pressure of the waves, essentially becoming a pile of rubble
covered with corrugated iron sheets. Some material has been flushed away, and most of the
remaining material has been rendered useless by rot. A few pots and pans can be seen
through the openings in the collapsed roof, the last indicator that this used to be a
cookhouse.
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Photo 5. Diminished American-style house. This Rearlaplap house has diminished by the length of
the exposed concrete foundation (right-hand side), following the removal of waterlogged parts.
A great majority of the materials used to construct the three houses fall within the
category of global market goods; things that cannot be bought or otherwise acquired in
Rearlaplap, and that can be bought in Majuro, but is not made in RMI. This entails that the
materials required to rebuild the houses – plywood, impregnated beams, and paint, as well
as corrugated iron sheets – will have to be taken from other houses, and piles of rubble, and
that the houses will have to be reduced in size. With the removal of ruined materials the
houses will be rebuilt with the few materials that still remain, and as they become
cannibalized (or self-cannibalized) for parts they diminish in size (see Photo 5). In a sense,
the houses are eroding away.
Repairs have not been a priority until now, but this is about to change. P.’s family is
scheduled to arrive from Majuro in around two weeks’ time, and P. has expressed a wish for
the family mõn kiki (house for sleep) to be in order by their arrival. The repairs are carried
out by members of the family and the extended family. A couple young boys are busying
themselves by removing nails from the shutters, collecting the nails in plastic bottles,
dismantling the plywood from the two-by-four beams, and the beams from each other. I
help P. remove a few nails from various materials, and assist him in the construction of a top
wall plate, to be made from the still dry portions of two otherwise waterlogged two-by111
fours’. The waterlogged portions are cut away, leaving behind two ‘half-beams’ of inferior
length. A smaller section of two-by-four is fastened parallel to the other two two-by-fours’,
in such a fashion that the twelve inch section overlaps the ‘weld’ between the two two-byfours’; functioning as a brace of sorts. The brace is fastened to the longer two-by-fours’ by a
few nails, culminating in one long top wall plate rather than two shorter ‘half-beams’.
The first step in restoring the house is the dismantling process. The second part,
rebuilding, requires crafty repurposing and remodelling of the remaining materials; the parts
or sections not damaged by the water. The mõn kiki (house for sleep) will have to be
reconstructed with whatever materials P. have at hand, after the beams and plywood sheets
have been reduced by cutting away waterlogged sections. Due to the material constraints
that come with favouring an architectural style that depends upon foreign materials, this
type of conservation, repurposing, and the reduction of damages by cutting away
waterlogged pieces of two-by-fours and plywood becomes important. While other
traditional house constructions are available, their construction is considered to be too time
consuming, and the maintenance too demanding when compared to “American style
houses”; which is what my informants call the plywood-and-corrugated-iron housing that is
so commonly seen around Rearlaplap’s lagoon. Most nails are collected in plastic bottles or
in piles on the concrete floor, with the exception of nails too bent out of shape, or too
corroded, to be reused. Most wooden material is reused in new adapted lengths and shapes,
with the exception of thoroughly rotten materials. The men are crafty carpenters, and the
renovation process carries with it a sense of adaptation in the face of increasing constraints.
The work is for the most part ad hoc; adaptations are made underway and by eye, with the
notable exception of K.S. who is using a measuring tape. While some men are refurbishing
materials with handheld saws, others are doing carpentry. S.A. dismantles the roof, passing
nails and corrugated iron sheets down to one of the workers on the ground. S.A.’s
counterpart inspects the sheets for holes and other signs of wear and tear, proceeding by
plugging the holes with fabric and tar. By the next morning all the good nails have been
used, and the remaining nails require straightening and correcting. While additional nails are
scavenged from P.’s family mõn kuk (cookhouse), the limited supply of plywood and
impregnated beams is growing smaller. The house will have to be rebuilt with less material
than prior to the flood, so P. and A.W. have decided to move the northwest wall inwards,
112
reducing the length of the structure. The northwest top wall plate is torn down, along with
the northwest post, and is to be replaced by the ‘weld’ P. and I made yesterday. The
renovation carries on for the better part of the two weeks. Where the inside of the house
used to be divided into three compartments it is now limited to one big and one small
compartment; lacking sufficient materials due to the material constraints, P. has to make do
with a smaller section of plywood sheet wall inside the house.
The mõn kiki (house for sleep) is for the most part ready to receive P.’s family, but
the plastic water catchment requires further attention. The sorry state of their gardens
cannot be helped, but at a minimum the family requires access to shelter and clean drinking
water. The catchment is already on its side, and a few young boys are helping P. clean out
the inside of the tank; P. meanwhile works on installing a rain gutter alongside the northeast
edge of the house’s roof. As rainwater gathers on the northeast section of roof it travels
down into the gutter, which again inclines ever so slightly southeast towards the tank, where
all the rainwater collects. As soon as the tank has been sufficiently cleaned out it is restored
to the upright position; a lid seals the tank, only allowing water to stream in through the rain
gutter. It is not long before P. gets hold of a plastic bucket, fills it with clean water from
some relative’s catchment, and pours its contents into the northwesternmost end of the rain
gutter. He traces the flow of the water for any potential leaks, or accumulation of still water
inside the rain gutter, and makes a few quick adjustments to the overlaps in the pieces of
rain gutter that make up the collection system. He pours water into the elevated end of the
rain gutter once more, and when the water flows true he smiles; the home is finally ready
for his wife and child.
Households and house structures provide centres for the everyday or immediate
work organization – family members who live on the same weto (land tract) – by providing a
place where people can gather for meals, sleep, and a focal point around which work
becomes centred; meaning that most work culminates in the acquisition and temporary
accumulation of resources for the particular household. Consequently, most aspects of
everyday social life is organized around households where family members and friends drop
by for food, or coffee and bwebwenato (talk) at will. Larger social events such as funerals or
a keemem (first birthday) usually takes place around the household of the core family,
despite catering to a larger group. The state of the household is in other words an important
113
matter both for practical reasons (providing shelter, food, and medicine) as well as for the
social organization of everyday life.
The sorry state of households following the 3 March flood, the erosion of materials
that came with it, and the shrinking of houses following the “self-cannibalistic” process of
reconstruction, does not only point toward certain constraints on local resilience, but stands
as a physical indication of how social priorities impact life in unexpected ways. “Americanstyle” homes can be seen as signs of possible shifts within the larger organization of
extended family or large family groups, from a larger collective workforce towards a smaller
core-family centred social organization. Certain senior residents point out how family
members in “the olden days” would gather for larger projects such as house construction
and repairs, in exchange for food and bonds of long-term reciprocity, and how these
practices in large part have disappeared today. These elders will at times describe the
current generation as selfish and, consequently, as increasingly oriented towards the core
family rather than the extended family that is scattered throughout Rearlaplap. In this
regard it appears as if the American style houses reflect a social climate in which large-scale
work organizations have become more demanding to organize, possibly due to the
associated social obligations being perceived as burdensome. American style houses are,
with the exception of floods, cost-efficient to maintain; as they require a smaller workforce
at a lesser frequency relative to the efforts required in the time-consuming construction and
maintenance of the traditional thatched houses, as coconut and pandanus thatch
decomposes under long-term exposure to the humid climate. While traditional style
materials are available on-island, in contrast to Americans style materials, the traditional
house construction requires extended family to gather at a more frequent basis relative to
American style houses. The American style houses, then, may signify that the preferred
social organization of family members takes place at a smaller scale today than in the past as
referred to by elders. This would explain how the majority of the people prefer American
style houses to locally made houses (to the point that virtually no traditional houses can be
found in Rearlaplap); and this despite the material constraints on resilience that come with
relying on materials that are not available at the local level.
The social organization is both affected by, and affects the flood response, but other
external impacts are just as important when it comes to the wellbeing of the Rearlaplap
114
cyborg; and choices do not always have to be geared around healthy living, as other values
are given preference over the continued “stability” of the social organization of Rearlaplap.
Change is as ever-present in Rearlaplap as anywhere else in the Oceania, or the rest of the
world. Climate change does as such present another vector of change, only that the change
is incredibly rapid, violent, and non-reversible.
Re-evaluating Theoretical Foundations: Two Approaches to
Climate Change in RMI
In addition to figuring prominently in the global media, as a frontrunner for climate change
affected countries in the Pacific, RMI also figures in the anthropological discourse on climate
change. This is, as previously mentioned, by way of Rudiak-Gould’s book Climate Change and
Tradition in a Small Island State: The Rising Tide (2013). Rudiak-Gould’s publication figures as
the most recent significant anthropological contribution on the subject of climate change in
the Marshall Islands, with significant ties to climate change in Oceania at large; and it is
therefore imperative to draw some lines for comparison between the 2013 publication and
this thesis (as outlined in the Prologue and Chapter 1). The two anthropological
contributions are based on fieldwork conducted at different times, with different foci, and
within different contexts (time and place), with both having strong ties to the metacontext
of climate change in the Pacific. The texts can as such be seen as somewhat complimentary
to each other. While both texts argue that climate change – in particularly in the Marshalls –
should be seen as a profoundly social phenomenon, the theoretical approaches to local
understandings of surroundings, weather, and climate within the western scientific
discourse stand at odds with one another.
Firstly, Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State… does not concern itself
with the ecological dimension of climate change in any major way (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 14);
and while the absence of such a focus makes some sense given the books narrative focus,
the absence of ecology in relation to discourses on (or related to) climate change stands to
provide no more than half an answer. I find it somewhat surprising that Rudiak-Gould
justifies the absence of an ecological focus on the basis that environment is a western
115
conception that does not fit well with the concept of Bwirej33 (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 14). I
hold that the author is right in postulating that we should not see climate change as
environmental full stop, but I also hold that the only way to do justice to Marshallese
cosmology within western science is to fold the somewhat disconnected concept of
environment into the social; rather than omitting environment from the social. Even a study
into the expectation of disaster should account for the material dimension thereof, lest risk
portraying a voice without a head. Ironically, the theoretical framework behind Climate
Change and Tradition in a Small Island State… manages to split Marshallese cosmology, and
the concept of Bwirej, into two by arguing that the cosmology should remain intact.
The methodological setup behind the book does as such omit the many ways physical
dimensions, while not envisioned as a separate environment (such as in western cosmology),
constitutes a large part of Marshallese everyday life; and a part that the associated
narratives could not have existed without. By exclusively approaching the discursive
dimension of climate change as conceptualized by Marshallese people prior to the fact,
based in the idea that the physical dimension itself cannot be approached (by the book)
without being contrary to the Marshallese conception, Rudiak-Gould has put himself in a
position where he cannot discuss what his informants are talking about, but rather what
they are saying. This does not devalue the narratives presented by the people of RMI, so
much as it devalues the book’s grasp on the on-the-ground day-to-day realities of the people
behind the discourse, as well as how the discourse is situated. In that regard, the author’s
informants are not living in a dimension of physical reality (as far as the book’s analysis is
concerned), but rather a sense of disconnectedness that offers little clue as to the physical
wellbeing of the people or their society.
In this this thesis I have, in contrast, approached the issues of climate change as they
are projected onto human society and the human body, and I has done so by experimentally
reinterpreting Haraway’s cyborg myth. Based in the assumption that local Marshall
Islanders, and indeed most Oceanian people, do not envision the physical (or the
33
The concept (Bwirej) is not mentioned explicitly in Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State…, but
is nevertheless referred to as “cosmology” in the larger text. In “Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands:
The Women, The Plants, The Treatments” Bwirej is referred to “as the all-encompassing Marshallese concept of
land” in which “people and their knowledge and traditions are all part of the terrestrial, freshwater, and marine
ecosystems […] rather than constituting separate entities” (Taafaki, Fowler & Thaman, 2006: 42).
116
environment) as separate from themselves – in turn meaning that the social and the
physical, or nature and culture, in no way is separate from each other – the bricoleurs
approach to Haraway was constructed (or reconstructed) to fold the social realities and the
material realities into one whole. This was done in a fashion somewhat similar to the PanPacific concepts of all-embracing land34, such as the Fijian Vanua, the Puava of the Marovo
Lagoon, and the Marshallese Bwirej. According to Edvard Hviding, while “non-Western views
of nature may seem exotic and strange to the Western observer, they are not therefore by
definition incompatible with western science” (Hviding, 2003: 250). This thesis has proposed
to approach the realities of climate change by allowing for the material or environmental
dimension to be a part of the social reality of the affected people, in order to help us better
understand what climate-change-affected Oceanian people struggle with on a daily basis. In
an attempt to circumvent the western divide between environment and the social, this
thesis choses to pay tribute to the same Marshallese cosmology that Rudiak-Gould refers to;
not by distancing the analysis (or the ethnographic prose) from the physical dimensions of
an environment, but rather by attempting to weave the western academic divisions that do
little justice to the Marshall Islands (and other similar Oceanian constellations) into a
coherent whole; a cyborg. This cyborg melds the western boundaries that-should-not-be
into an analytical framework that strives to represent the lived reality of climate change as it
presents itself in RMI and Oceania at large. Such an approach dispels the illusion that climate
change is a physical thing that happens around people, rather than to people and the social
world. The reinterpreted cyborg makes room for the social realities of environment.
In terms of methodology, Rudiak-Gould’s book has been written based on insights
gained throughout four extended stays in RMI, in 2003 – 2004, 2007, 2009, and 2012
(Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 13). The research has as such found place prior to the catastrophe –
“notwithstanding some moderate impacts and frightening omens” – and does instead focus
on the expectation of climate-change-related disaster (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 14). Whereas
the fieldwork behind the book took place outside of any major climatic events, the fieldwork
behind this thesis took place during and following a climate related extreme weather event
which physical impacts majorly affected my informants; as demonstrated in chapters three
34
For more information on the Pan-Pacific concepts of nature (or all-embracing categories of land), with
emphasis on the Fijian Vanua, the Marovo Lagoon Puava, as well as the Hawai'ian Ahupuaá and the Yapese
Tabinaw, see Hviding (2003).
117
through five of this thesis. Our foci were also of a completely different nature, one of on-theground versus a predominantly narrative one. It follows that where the information
presented in the Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State… paints a picture of
people handling risk and perceptions of future danger in a way that benefits the society, this
was only partially true for my informants.
Rudiak-Gould was, in a sense, unfortunate to study climate change before the fact.
The impacts were not as profound as they are today, and the awareness of Oceanian people
(and other people) with regards to climate change was not as acute as it is today. When the
author summarizes the general lines of his trajectory theory of risk perception based on
present and future risk (and threats) in the context of other possible trajectory theories, he
does so with little regard to the actual presence of danger in the now (Rudiak-Gould, 2013:
181). However, the risk is no longer just a risk, but instead an ongoing process of
destruction. According to the 2013 book, the threat presents an ideological hazard that has
to be neutralized by the affected social group, which starts off a process in which the idea of
the threat becomes encompassed by the ideological narratives of the affected society
(Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 178). The affected group comes to both love and loath the idea of the
threat; as it both stands to threaten the ideological values that are held dear as much as it
stands to strengthen those same values by way of raising peoples’ awareness of them
(Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 178). This contrasts with two findings that informed this thesis. For one
the majority of people encountered claimed in their narratives that climate change as a
reality had just recently dawned on them, with the increasing effects of bad weather,
inundations and so forth. The veracity of climate change was based in the physical
occurrences that had marked, and did mark peoples’ everyday lives. The idea of a threat,
then, was not based in assumptions of risk to-be, but rather in confirmations of the presence
of danger; risk taken to its unfortunate conclusion.
While climate change certainly has become a part of the narratives of many
Marshallese people, this thesis finds that the narrative first and foremost has been activated
not as an ideological threat but as a physical threat that carries ideological concerns with it.
The idea of the threat was not loved, as it was loathed. The latter is however not a critique
of Rudiak-Gould, as Mary Douglas’ idea of risk does not concern dangers (while
acknowledging them to be real), but rather how dangers become politicized (Douglas, 1992:
118
29-30). The critical point with regards to Rudiak-Gould has to do with the difference
between risk, and an event that is happening or otherwise has occurred; as physicality
beyond the threshold of risk. The prospect of future threats in the form of repeated events,
such as the 3 March flood, was in no way cherished for its rejuvenating possibilities with
regards to holding back cultural decline, but lamented for the brutal impasse it brought
down upon the rhythm of daily life. The argument that “Marshall Islanders have transformed
climate change from an abhorrent danger to an appealing risk” (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 180)
does not resonate well with the general perception of climate change as the disaster
unfolds. There is nothing appealing about the risk faced with regards to the longevity of the
Marshall Islands; that is, outside of certain sectors or groups, and within certain narratives.
While it is well known that destruction can bring opportunities of creation and recreation (as
rebuilding in itself can be a creative process) my informants show no signs of being allured
by the promise of creativity in association with destruction. While it may be argued – as the
book does – that the associated trajectory narrative strengthens peoples perceptiveness
with regards to traditional ways of life, the primary concern is not a conceptual or narrative
one, but one of lived reality; possible relocation, the loss of food, the loss of homes, and the
loss of certainty.
At the very end of Climate Change and Tradition in a Small Island State… the author
predicts that “climate change will become the new radiation, the catch-all-explanation for
negative change”, that “diabetes will come to be blamed on climate change”, the number of
people who see climate change as causal for “nearly everything, will increase”, and that
Marshallese peoples “trust of scientists will swell”, not to mention that “biblical exegesis […]
will be needed more than ever by any remaining disbelievers” (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 183184). While none of my informants have vocalized any connection between climate change
and diabetes – however much unhealthy imported food replaces healthy traditional food, or
how much traditional food is threatened by climate change – the belief in the credibility of
climate change in affected areas is soaring. Climate change has not replaced radiation within
the cultural narrative of the Marshall Islands, but the two narratives have become
intertwined in a manner where the one parallels the other (and vice versa). Even clergymen
(pastors, reverends, and the like) express some uncertainty with regards to the future, as the
will of God is uncertain at best. The Marshall Islands are, in the context of possible
119
relocation, viewed as a traditional space that stands to be lost; something that corresponds
well with Rudiak-Gould’s conclusion (Rudiak-Gould, 2013: 185). It seems that where the
outer islands provide a rooted traditional identity for those living in the Marshall Islands, so
too does the Marshall Islands provide a rooted identity for the people living abroad; and this
will in all likelihood apply in the possibility of a Marshall Islands “ex situ”35.
The Great Move Abroad
A great number of Marshallese people have already left their islands for the United States of
America, and more are on their way. Many among the well-off portion of the population
(still residing in RMI) – certain politicians, public voices, and policy makers – even have
estates abroad. Certain well-off people express, quite clearly, that they will pack their bags
and leave, if the frequency and scope of extreme weather events increase further.
Meanwhile, the majority of my informants – people who have little wealth in terms of
dollars – find it difficult to envision a move abroad. Besides, how would they live in the
absence of the fruits and fish they rely upon for their daily food? That being said, the refusal
to move come hell or high water – a refusal that accompanies RMI in the global media –
diverges from the narratives encountered in Rearlaplap. Whereas the former is an
expression of cultural value as narrated by the public voice of RMI, the latter is a voice of
down to earth practicality as told in post-flood Rearlaplap.
In a way, the public voice of the Marshall Islands can afford to speak out against
relocation because its citizens hold American passports as a result of the 1986 Compact of
Free Association; something also touched upon by Climate Change and Tradition in a Small
Island State…. The migration abroad has already begun, and while most people do not relish
the idea of abandoning the land that is so central for the practice of manit, many people
express that an uncertain future might rob them of their choice. The calamity is not so much
found in a singular event, such as the 3 March flood, but in the frequency of these events.
35
The ”nation ex situ” deals with the continued state legitimacy in the conceivable scenario of a nation
swallowed up by the sea; a precarious situation with regards to jus cogens norms, and ultimately the LOSC (the
Law of the Sea Convention) as well as the rules of EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones). Burkett (2013) suggests
that by recognizing such a nationless state, a “nation ex situ”, the displaced population will retain some
legitimacy and may hope to retain their EEZs. This latter point requires some alterations with regards to LOSC
as territorial waters and EEZs traditionally are measured from the low-tide mark of habitable land (not what
LOSC classifies as uninhabitable rock).
120
Like a marathon runner that is not allowed to rest in-between races, it is the frequency of
repeating extreme weather events that strains RMI. While one event causes stress that can
be overcome with time, the current situation seems to offer little or no time to recover; the
harshness that accompanies extreme weather events becomes ever more present in
everyday life. The threshold for pain has been reached, and the majority of people I spoke to
expressed concerns that the future would become unliveable. The ocean has always been a
potentially dangerous presence, and the recent flooding has made people all he more
aware. The public voice can only refuse to migrate in-so-far as the government believes that
the American Passports provide a way out if worst comes to worst. RMI is in this respect
different from most other low-lying Pacific Countries (take for instance Kiribati as
represented by President Tong) that are struggling with rising seas and extreme weather;
whereas other Pacific countries have to devote their public voice to procuring a place to
relocate to, RMI can afford being tenaciously stubborn in its refusals to move – as the move
already is taken care of.
New issues arise with regards to how the Marshallese population ex situ will be able
to organize their country-in-absence-of-a-country, or how they will be treated by the US or
other host countries. Calls to drown rather than relocate enforce a sense of Marshallese
identity, and this is the sense of identity that Marshallese people will have to maintain if
they are to retain their culture in the unfortunate event of a nationwide exodus. In this
regard, I hold that Rudiak-Gould is correct in assuming that the narrative refusal to migrate
serves a purpose for Marshallese identity making, and the maintenance thereof. Relocating
would, arguably, threaten Marshallese values by depriving the population ex situ of the
physical and geographical roots of their cultural heritage. Indeed, while many Marshall
Islanders live abroad today, an increasingly large portion of them know little about the
oceans and the islands their ancestors used to call home. Those who do remember, and
those who occasionally visit RMI, can however maintain this sense of identity by reaffirming
their legitimate belonging-in-the-land where it springs forth from their ancestors’ tombs.
While one could claim that the atolls and islands of RMI are mere geographical features, this
would do little justice to their importance for identity-making, and it is justifiable to worry
for the impending loss of identity that would accompany RMI’s disappearance beneath the
sea. Many of my informants do however distance themselves from the political cries of no
121
relocation, and express an increasing hopelessness in the post-flood situation, and the fact
that their political leaders seemingly have forgotten about the people outside of the two
major cities (Majuro and Ebeye). One informant gives voice to this, saying “what about me?
What about the outer Islanders, the people not living in Majuro? What will we do?”. He
asserts that the decision of relocation does not belong to the politicians alone, and that he
would prefer not to remain behind if worst came to worst. At times the political play, and
the perceptions and realities of the people, stand at odds with each other.
The curious relationship between the Marshall Islands and the United States of
America takes a new turn in the face of rising oceans and more extreme weather. Whereas
the US originally stood in relation to the Marshall Islands as a bringer of war, bombs, and a
nuclear odyssey unlike anything encountered before (or since), the US also played its part in
the Compact of Free Association process and the so-called Marshallese independence (or
rather neo-colonialism). It is all the more striking that where the first major destruction
brought down upon entire islands and atolls came by way of the paternalistic tendencies of
the United States abroad, it is now the US that provides the safe bosom in which the
Marshall Islanders of the future may have to seek refuge. The irony does not end there, as
this is a future that the pollutions of the US have played no small part in conceiving. The US
that disintegrated so many islands may finally provide solid footing for a Marshallese
population ex situ.
122
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